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Paraonidae			Family Paraonidae (paraonid) Scolecida (Annelida: Polychaeta)

About Family Paraonidae polychaetes in New Zealand.
How to recognise the family:	Slender burrowing worms with characteristic pairs of short belt-like to leaf-like gills present from about chaetiger four through a limited number of anterior segments. A short median-dorsal antenna on the prostomium is diagnostic but not present in all genera. The conical prostomium may be transcribed by nuchal grooves. Eyespots may be present. Chaetae consist mostly of simple capillaries, but also forked chaetae known as lyrate chaetae, thickened chaetae with a constriction or notch on the shaft known as pseudocompound chaetae, and thickened bayonet-like chaetae with fine tips, all of which are considered taxonomically important. Small post-chaetal lobes may be present, especially dorsally. There are usually three anal cirri. Paraonids are probably selective feeders on grain-sized organisms such as diatoms and protozoans. Adult size: To 40 mm length by 1 mm width, but usually much smaller.
How to recognise the New Zealand genera:	There are surprisingly no prior taxonomic records of nearshore paraonids in New Zealand, although several species do occur in genera Aricidea and Paradoneis. Aricidea has a median antenna and gills are always from chaetiger four. In Paradoneis the median antenna is absent and lyrate or acicular notochaetae may be present. Levinsenia (also formerly known as Tauberia) also lacks a median antenna and has branchiae starting from further back than chaetiger three.
Quick pick shore species:	As yet it is not possible to identify most New Zealand species. A thread-like species, with branchiae from about chaetiger 7, may be close to Levinsenia gracilis Tauber, 1879.
Possible misidentifications:	Paraonids are often collected with spionids in benthic samples and in fact look rather spionid-like, except for a tendency of the posterior body to be coiled. Closer examination will reveal the lack of palps, the ill-defined peristomium, the reduced chaetal lobes, and the very different chaetae compared to a spionid.
Distributions, lifestyle, and habitat:	Throughout New Zealand. Low intertidal to deep sea. Paraonids occur in soft substrata both inshore in shallow harbour waters and at depth. They build wandering impermanent burrows in sandy muds. Some burrow along bedding planes in progressive horizontal spirals while feeding on diatoms.
Abundance:	Uncommon to moderately common.
Taxonomic note:	Historical problems defining the paraonid genera were by no means resolved by Strelzov's overly-complicated revision (in part over-ruled by an ICZN decision) which has added more fuel to the confusion. Full identifications and delimiting the various genus usages are still difficult to achieve. Aricidea (Acesta) simplex (Day 1963) and Paradoneis lyra (Southern, 1914) have been recorded from deep water off New Zealand.
References:	(Blake 1996b: p27-70, f2.1-18), (Fauchald 1977: p17-18), (Kirkegaard 1996: p62), (Strelzov 1979: p1-212, f1-68). (Full citations at Family pages literature cited list.)

Species in the guide:	Rock Species: None for this family.
	Sand Species: None for this family.
	Shell Species: None for this family.
Internet  sources:	GOOGLE Search |   AlltheWeb Search | CISTI |   CBIF BiOSC Gateway | GOBASE Molecular | GenBank |
	Family in Ubio Taxonomic Name Server |  PubMed | Scirus | Zoological Record |
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The information provided by this page and by the pages of the "more information" links is held in a structured form for rapid and frequent updating and improvement. Descriptive text is compiled from a number of database fields, some of which may occasionally be empty. Last modified by G. Read, 25/07/2004    (dd/mm/yy)