Hoffmeister, 1845
Description
Earthworm-like, thick oligochaetes, with dark pigmentation anteriorly. Anus dorsal. Chaetae two per bundle, sigmoid, with simple blunt tip, ornamented with transversal ridges or scars. Male pores as transversal slits in XV or 14/15, in mature individuals sitting on very large glandular porophores. Clitellum annular, with inconspicuous borders, very long (beginning from XIV...XVI, stretching to ILV...ILVII). No tubercula pubertatis. Small female pores in 14/15 can sometimes sit on their papillae. Several ventral chaetae between IX and XXIII can be modified as genital chaetae, with longitudinal grooves on their distal portion; in this case, each of them is surrounded also with glandular papilla. Several horn-shaped spermatophores can be attached to body wall near genital pores after copulation. Length 85-400 mm, body diameter 3-10 mm, segment number 150-450. Differing from the lumbricids and from Sparganophilus, in the anterior position of clitellum, covering also male pores in XV.
Burrowing in sediment.
Distribution
Europe and the Near East.
Ecology
In freshwater.
Reproduction
Sexual only. Eggs laid in cocoons.
Literature
Hoffmeister, 1845: 2; Vejdovsky, 1884b: 58-59, Pl. X Fig. 21, Pl. XIII Figs 12-21, Pl. XIV Figs 1-15; Orley, 1887: 551-560; Collin, 1888: 471-497; Chekanovskaya, 1981: 486-487, Fig. 248; Jamieson, 1971: 803-806, Fig. 15.11; Kasprzak, 1981: 212, Figs 845-849.