Marine Species Identification Portal : Proceraea aurantiaca

Claparède, 1868

Description:
Body thread-like.
Prostomium rounded, broader than long, with four eyes in a trapezoid arrangement. Eyes large, with lenses; anterior pair the largest. Palps hardly visible dorsally. Median antenna very long, lateral antennae shorter and at least 3-4x as long as the prostomium.
Dorsal tentacular cirri as long as lateral antennae, ventral clearly shorter. Dorsal cirri of first segment very long, about as long as median antennae. Dorsal cirri of second segment only 25-33 % of that size. All other dorsal cirri equal in size and shorter than segment width. Ventral cirri absent.
Blades of compound chaetae short, secondary tooth a little larger than terminal tooth. Posterior parapodia from segment 30 and further with an additional needle shaped chaeta. Bayonet-chaetae present in the posterior end of the body.
Pharynx twisted. Trepan with 12 incised teeth ('un cercle d'une dizaine de dents u peu crochues. Chaque dent a une base fort large et un peu échancré' (Claparède, 1868 page 531)), although Kirkegaard, 1992, states that there is an alternating arrangement of 9 large and 9 smaller teeth.
Pygidium with 2 long cirri.

Size:
Body up to 20 mm long for 60-100 segments.

Colour:
Dorsally, every segment with 4 large red or orange-coloured spots.

Habitat:
From low-water, between stones and seaweeds, down to 100 m deep.

Distribution:
North Atlantic up to Mediterranean, English Channel and North Sea.

Proceraea aurantiaca