Biodiversity & Conservation

Green-leaf worm - Eulalia viridis

Eulalia viridis

Image Keith Hiscock - Eulalia viridis. Image width ca 5 cm.
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Distribution map

Eulalia viridis recorded (dark blue bullet) and expected (light blue bullet) distribution in Britain and Ireland (see below)

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Eulalia viridis is not listed under any importance categories.

Taxonomy icon Taxonomy Taxon English term
Phylum Annelida Segmented worms e.g. ragworms, tubeworms & fanworms
Class Polychaeta Bristleworms, e.g. ragworms, scaleworms, paddleworms, fanworms and tubeworms
Authority (Linnaeus, 1767)
Recent synonyms None
Map icon Recorded Distribution in Britain and Ireland Found around all British and Irish coasts.
Habitat information icon Habitat information The green-leaf worm is found widely in crevices, barnacle and mussel beds and on kelp holdfasts from the intertidal to the shallow sublittoral. It may also be found subtidally on hard rocky bottoms and in shell gravel.
Text page icon Description A long, dorsally flattened worm (between 5 -15 cm in length) with up to 200 segments. The eversible proboscis is long and cylindrical and covered in small, rounded papillae. The head has two large eyes, 5 antennae and 4 pairs of tentacular cirri, the longest of which may reach back to about the 7th segment. The paddles on the parapods are flattened, elongated and narrow to a point. The worm is bright to mid-green in colour.
Identifying features
  • A long, many segmented, dorsally flattened polychaete, between 5 -15 cm long and 2.5 cm in width, excluding the parapodia.
  • Colour varies from light yellowish green to bright green.
  • The prostomium has 2 pairs of short antennae and a fifth, median antenna in front of the dark red eyes.
  • Immediately behind the prostomium there are four pairs of tentacles that may reach back to segment 7.
  • Behind the head the dorsal cirri of each parapod are flattened and pointed. They project out from the body to form a fringe down each side of the body.
Additional information icon Additional information It breeds in July and August. It is thought to produce the green gelatinous egg masses found on the shore, usually attached to seaweed, although there is no evidence to corroborate this assumption (Fish & Fish, 1996).

This review can be cited as follows:

Paolo Pizzolla 2008. Eulalia viridis. Green-leaf worm. Marine Life Information Network: Biology and Sensitivity Key Information Sub-programme [on-line]. Plymouth: Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom. [cited 24/05/2013]. Available from: <http://www.marlin.ac.uk/speciesinformation.php?speciesID=3312>