Magelonids are common in sandy bottoms, and build only very flimsy tube-structures. They are rather distinctive with their flattened, shovel-shaped prostomium (which is often wider than the rest of the body) that is modified to assist in burrowing. The pharynx is eversible and a long pair of prehensile, papillate palps used to collect detrital particles arise from the prostomium/peristomium junction.
Diversity
Magelonids in Australia are generally only found in estuarine sampling, and as no extensive work or revision has been done on the family many specimens are poorly identified, also many specimens are considered to be undescribed species. As a result, this database has descriptions and illustrations of described and undescribed species.
Currently all magelonids are assigned to a single genus (Magelona) with more than 50 species described worldwide. There are only 2 described species in Australian waters, but this database contains 8 more undescribed species provisionally identified from major benthic surveys of soft sediments in southeastern Australia. The principal areas surveyed are Bass Strait and Port Phillip Bay (material held in Museum Victoria, Melbourne) and Jervis and Botany Bays (material held in Australian Museum, Sydney). Many taxa undoubtedly remain to be described from Australian waters, especially beyond the soft sediment communities of southeastern Australia which have generated much of the material covered here.
