Harpagonchinae, Platonova & Potin, 1972

Venekey, Virag, Gheller, Paula F., Kandratavicius, Noelia, Cunha, Beatriz Pereira, Vilas-Boas, Ana Carolina, Fonseca, Gustavo & Maria, Tatiana F., 2019, The state of the art of Chromadoridae (Nematoda, Chromadorida): a historical review, diagnoses and comments about valid and dubious genera and a list of valid species, Zootaxa 4578 (1), pp. 1-67 : 32

Subfamily Harpagonchinae

Diagnosis (modified from Decraemer & Smol 2006 and Tchesunov, 2014): Cuticle with homogenous ornamentation without lateral differentiation. Anterior sensilla in three separate circles with the four cephalic sensilla setiform. Buccal cavity with three movable triangular-shaped mandibles with anterior solid hooks. Pharynx enlarged anteriorly around the mandibular apparatus and posteriorly widened with or without terminal bulb. Males with precloacal supplements present (cup-shaped) or absent. The genera of this sub-family are either considered ectoparasites ( Decraemer & Smol 2006) or ectosymbionts ( Tchesunov 2014) of polychaetes in marine environments.