Tube morphology, ultrastructures and mineralogy in recent Spirorbinae (Annelida: Polychaeta: Serpulidae). I. General introduction. Tribe Paralaeospirini

Abstract

This report is the first part of a series of papers that provide an overview of tube morphology, mineralogy, and ultrastructures within the subfamily Spirorbinae, including the discussion of taxonomic and phylogenetic significance of the tube features. This paper reviews published data on the subject and provides descriptions of ultrastructure and mineralogy for the tribe Paralaeospirini Knight-Jones, 1978. The species of the tribe have uniformly simple calcitic unilayered tubes of the same irregularly oriented prismatic (IOP) ultrastructural type, which is regarded as plesiomorphic among serpulids.