Hrabe, 1964
Type species Saenuris umbellifera Kessler, 1868
Number of species 11. In NWE, three species:
Psammoryctides albicola (Michaelsen, 1901a)
Psammoryctides barbatus (Grube, 1861)
Psammoryctides moravicus (Hrabe, 1934)
Description
Large smooth, pink tubificids. Hair and pectinate chaetae of various shape, in anterior dorsal bundles; bifid crotchets in ventral bundles. Thin stick-shaped, distally grooved spermathecal chaetae in X. No ventral chaetae in X, at male pores. Representatives of Psammoryctides are bigger and tougher than most species of Tubifex, Potamothrix, Ilyodrilus, and other tubificid genera with hair and pectinate chaetae. Robust, strongly curved crotchets with small upper tooth, in tail region, are characteristic of the genus, as well as very thin stick-shaped spermathecal chaetae.
Burrowing in sediment.
Distribution
Holarctic, with separate subgenera in the Old and New World.
Ecology
In fresh and brackish water.
Reproduction
Sexual only. Eggs laid in cocoons.
Literature
Vejdovsky, 1876a: 194; Hrabe, 1964: 107; Brinkhurst and Jamieson, 1971: 478-480; Chekanovskaya, 1981: 331-332; Hrabe, 1981: 92-93; Kasprzak, 1981: 168.