The Terebellidae is a marine family of
polychaete worms, of which the type taxon is ''
Terebella'', described by
Carl Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...
in his 1767
12th edition of ''Systema Naturae''.
Characteristics
Most terebellids live in burrows or crevices and are often of large size, ranging up to 150 millimetres in length and 15 millimetres in width. The numerous, very long tentacles which radiate from near the mouth are used for finding and collecting food particles from the sediment surface. The tentacles are not retractable as is the case in the
ampharetids. They have plump anterior bodies and numerous segments in their long, tapered posterior bodies, whereas ampharetids are more compact. They have branched gills laterally on up to three anterior
chaetigers but in the subfamily
Thelepodinae the gills are numerous simple filaments. The mid-body chaetigers are in double rows in the subfamily
Terebellinae. In the subfamily
Polycirrinae, the gills are absent and the
prostomium is expanded as an undulating membrane which bears the tentacles., Notably, some of these worms are the only known violet or purple bioluminescent animals.
Systematics
The roughly 400 known
species
A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...
are divided between many dozens of
genera
Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family as used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial s ...
. Most of these are assigned to 4
subfamilies.
World Register of Marine Species
/ref> Some additional genera are of unresolved or quite basal position.
Gallery
Image:Nerr0329.jpg, '' Amphitrite'' sp.
Image:Eupolymnia nebulosa & Crambe crambe.jpg, '' Eupolymnia nebulosa''
Image:Lanice conchilega.jpg, '' Lanice conchilega''
Image:Terebellidae sp..jpg, '' Loima'' sp.
Image:Thelepuscincinnatus.jpg, '' Thelepus cincinnatus''
References
Three new species of Thelepus Leuckart, 1849 from Europe and a re-description of T. cincinnatus (Fabricius, 1780)
{{Authority control
Terebellida