CHILDIIDAE Dörjes, 1968

Faubel, A. & Warwick, R. M., 2005, The marine flora and fauna of the Isles of Scilly: Free-living Plathelminthes (‘ Turbellaria’), Journal of Natural History 39 (1), pp. 1-45 : 11

Family CHILDIIDAE Dörjes, 1968

Remarks

Hooge (2001) revised the family Childiidae Dörjes, 1968 , which is now characterized by the new diagnostic character, the presence of a reversed body wall musculature, i.e. with outer longitudinal muscles and inner circular muscles ( Childia v. Graff, 1911 and Paraphanostoma Westblad, 1942 ). All the other genera of the former Childiidae have been transferred to the new family Actinoposthiidae Hooge, 2001 . We prefer to use the diagnosis given by Dörjes (1968a) because we have some evidence (Faubel unpublished) that a partial or total reversal of the body wall musculature is also present in species of other families, and in particular in Haplogonaria syltensis Dörjes, 1968 and Actinoposthia biaculeata Faubel, 1974 . This reversal probably depends on the degree of exposure of the habitats where the species are living.