( Lastockin, 1936)
Description
Medium-sized to large, smooth pink or red worms. Ordinary chaetae with shorter upper tooth, 3-7 in anterior bundles, 60-100 µm long. In mature worms no ventral chaetae in XI, but single genital chaetae in ventral bundles of IX, X, and XII: 86-150 µm long and with upper tooth at least twice as long as lower one. Anterior dissepiments thickened, funnel-shaped in preserved specimens. Length 25-33 mm, diameter less than 1 mm, segment number up to 118. Can be confused with young Tubifex newaensis but differs from them in having modified genital chaetae when mature. Short upper tooth in all chaetae, anterior and posterior, is also shared with Aulodrilus limnobius and some other, much smaller tubificids with penial chaetae in XI.
Burrowing in sediment.
Distribution
Eastern Europe (originally the Ponto-Caspian basin); suspicious records from Siberia.
First record in NWE in Austria by Uzunov and Russev, 1985.
Ecology
In freshwater, particularly on sandy bottom of large rivers; tolerating weak salinity.
Reproduction
Sexual only. Eggs laid in cocoons.
Literature
Lastockin, 1936: 188; Lastockin, 1937: 233; Brinkhurst and Jamieson, 1971: 477, Fig. 8.6G-J, K-N, 7E; Chekanovskaya, 1981: 311-313, Fig. 150; Hrabe, 1981: 89, Pl. 14 Figs 23-26, Pl. 15 Figs 1-3; Kasprzak, 1981: 167, Figs 607-615; Uzunov and Russev, 1985 : 131-145.