Polynoidae

Polynoidae
Dorsal view of Lepidonotus oculatus, a polynoid specimen from the Museums Victoria collection.
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Annelida
Clade: Pleistoannelida
Subclass: Errantia
Order: Phyllodocida
Suborder: Aphroditiformia
Family: Polynoidae
Genera

See text

Polynoidae is a family of marine Polychaete worms known as "scale worms" due to the scale-like elytra on the dorsal surface. Almost 900 species are currently recognised belonging to 9 subfamilies and 167 genera.[1] They are active hunters, but generally dwell in protected environments such as under stones. The group is widely distributed from shallow intertidal waters to hadal trenches.[2] They are the most diverse group of polychaetes in terms of genus number and second most diverse in terms of species number which is almost 8% of all segmented worm species.[1]

A scale worm moving along the substrate at a depth of 20m in the Lembeh Strait
  1. ^ a b Read, G; Fauchald, K. "World Polychaeta database. Polynoidae Kinberg, 1856". World Register of Marine Species.
  2. ^ Bonifácio, Paulo; Menot, Lénaïck (14 November 2018). "New genera and species from the Equatorial Pacific provide phylogenetic insights into deep-sea Polynoidae (Annelida)" (PDF). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 185 (3): 555–635. doi:10.1093/zoolinnean/zly063.