(Verrill, 1871 in Smith and Verrill, 1871)
Description
Medium-sized smooth pink or red worms. All chaetae bifid crotchets with teeth of equal length. Anterior chaetae 5-9 per bundle, 60-105 µm long. No ventral chaetae in XI. Penial sheaths nearly cylindrical but with symmetrical mushroom-like distal end, about 5 times as long as their proximal width. Dark chloragogen tissue on oesophagus beginning from VI, sometimes from posterior portion of V. Length 25-50 mm, segment number 50-90. Can be confused with the much more common Limnodrilus hoffmeisteri by chaetae, but differing from it by shorter and more symmetrical penial sheaths, and (even when immature) by beginning of dark chloragogen tissue in VI, like in Limnodrilus udekemianus. The latter has different anterior chaetae, with longer upper tooth.
Burrowing in sediment.
Distribution
Holarctic, Japan.
Ecology
In freshwater. Somewhat more oxyphilous than its congeners.
Reproduction
Sexual only. Eggs laid in cocoons.
Literature
Smith and Verrill, 1871: 451; Piguet, 1913: 134, Figs 8-10; Brinkhurst and Jamieson, 1971: 470, Fig. 8.4D-E; Chekanovskaya, 1981: 316-317, Fig. 153A; Hrabe, 1981: 96-97, Pl. 17 Figs 13, 16, 18; Kasprzak, 1981: 177, Figs 670-676.