Family ONUPHIDAE

Onuphidae

Museums

Museum list

Regional Maps

Family ONUPHIDAE

Bait Worm, Beach Worm, Quill Worm

Compiler and date details

Jan 2011 - P. Hutchings & M. Yerman, Australian Museum, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

25 July 2003

Introduction

Onuphids are common and widespread in soft sediments. They are mostly tubicolous polychaetes; they may be sedentary in their tubes, or epibenthic crawlers pulling their tube around with them. In southern Australia the most common species in these habitats are unidentified species of Diopatra and Kinbergonuphis, some of which remain to be described. Species referred to as beach worms on surf beaches along the east coast of Australia represent several species of Onuphis and are widely collected for fish bait. Anglers with quick reflexes catch these worms by dragging a rotting fish head across the sand in between the swash. Onuphids have a head with 5 well-developed sensory appendages with ringed ceratophores, and the anteriormost parapodia are often enlarged and specialised for a particular mode of life.

The family definition followed by Paxton (2000) was that of Paxton (1986), except that the traditional terminology of prostomial appendages is replaced with that proposed by Paxton (1998) after Orrhage (1995).

Figures of 16 genera and 60 species were given by Beesley et al. (2000: App. 1) for representation of the family in Australian waters, and 22 genera and ~270 species worldwide. This database includes 27 species from 10 genera.

See Paxton (2000) for detailed treatment of the family.

Database Notes

completed for all of Hannelore Paxton's papers on Australian onuphids (RTJ)

Diagnosis

The rounded prostomium bears a pair of small dorsal frontal lips (rarely absent), three antennae and two palps. Each the antennae and palps comprises a basal ringed ceratophore and a distal smooth style. Ventrally, a pair of large bulbous upper lips is present. Eyes may be present or absent. The peristomium is a single apodous ring, with or without a pair dorsal peristomial cirri. The first two to eight pairs of parapodia are modified. They are often longer, have different parapodial lobes and chaetae than those following, and thus are specialised for digging, locomotion or tube building. The modified parapodia have digitiform ventral cirri, the remaining unmodified ones have glandular pads. Dorsal cirri are present throughout or are reduced to absent on posterior chaetigers. Filaments of the branchiae, when present, are simple, pectinately or dichotomously branched, or spirally arranged. Parapodia are sub-biramous; the notopodium represented only by a dorsal cirrus with or without embedded aciculae. Modified parapodia have simple or pseudocompound hooks; pectinate and/or limbate chaetae are present or absent. Chaetae of unmodified parapodia are pectinate, simple limbate and subacicular hooks; compound limbate chaetae (spinigers) are sometimes present and falcigers are rare. Pygidial cirri number two or four. The jaws consist of ventral, unfused mandibles, and dorsal maxillae of the labidognath type. The maxillae are mineralised with aragonite, and comprise a pair of short carriers and 3-5 toothed plates on the right and 4-toothed plates on the left. The maxillary plates are asymmetrical with the right maxilla III missing and the right maxilla IV being larger than the corresponding left one.
The above description is based on Paxton (2000), which in turn is based on Fauchald & Rouse (1997).