Worms that might be 300 million years old

Abstract

Annelida is one of the most evolutionarily successful phyla and because they diversified in the Palaeozoic, understanding their evolutionary history is paramount to explaining the evolution of animal life. Glyceriformia is now one of the best morphologically investigated clades within Annelida. Recent species are important, widely distributed, endopsammal benthic predators and occur from intertidal to abyssal depths. Larger species are popular subjects for ecological, physiological and biochemical studies. A morphology-based cladistic analysis was carried out at the genus level and supports the monophyly of Glyceridae and Goniadidae. Furthermore, fossils confirm that the morphological ground pattern of Glyceriformia is unchanged since the Carboniferous and their scolecodonts might be useful as index fossils for geology.

Keywords:

• Annelida
• Glyceridae
• Glyceriformia
• Goniadidae
• Polychaetes

Published in collaboration with the University of Bergen and the Institute of Marine Research, Norway, and the Marine Biological Laboratory, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Published in collaboration with the University of Bergen and the Institute of Marine Research, Norway, and the Marine Biological Laboratory, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Acknowledgments

I wish to express my gratitude to C. Fricker (The Field Museum, Chicago) for the loan of material. Many thanks to G. Paterson (Natural History Museum, London), C. Treadaway and M. Grimm (both Senckenberg Museum, Frankfurt) for critically reading the manuscript and improving the language. Thanks also to D. Eibye-Jacobsen (Zoological Museum, Copenhagen), K. Halanych (Auburn University, Alabama) and an anonymous referee for their useful advice. The work was supported by a grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (BO 1848/1-1 + 2).

Notes

Published in collaboration with the University of Bergen and the Institute of Marine Research, Norway, and the Marine Biological Laboratory, University of Copenhagen, Denmark