Megascolecidae

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Megascolecidae
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Annelida
Class: Clitellata
Order: Haplotaxida
Suborder: Lumbricina
Family: Megascolecidae
Genera

See text.

Megascolecidae is a large family of earthworms which has native representatives in Australia, New Zealand, Southeast and East Asia, and North America. Membership requires a 'megascolecine' arrangement of male pores (i.e., with vasa deferentia and prostatic ducts uniting before opening via a combined pore on segment 18), rather than an 'acanthodriline' arrangement (with male pores and pores from one or more pairs of prostates opening separately near segment 18, but never combined on segment 18) as found in families Acanthodrilidae, Octochaetidae and Exxidae. Primitive members of the family show a Gondwanan distribution and have been used as evidence of continental drift. Members of the Pheretima group of genera (e.g. Amynthas) are widely distributed around the tropics, much as some Lumbricidae are distributed through the temperate zones. The North American native genera Argilophilus, Driloleirus, Arctiostrotus and others belong to this family.

Megascolecidae genera are either meroic, with multiple nephridia per segment, or have the more primitive holoic arrangement of two per segment. Some taxa also exhibit enteronephry where some nephridia, instead of emptying to the body surface, empty into the digestive tract. Setae may be lumbricine (primitive 8 per segment) or perichaetine (>8 setae per segment).

[edit] Genera

[Many other genera yet to be added].

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