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This class includes about 3,500 species of earthworms and freshwater worms. The members of the class range in length from about 1/32 in. to 10 ft (0.5 mm–3 m), but most are comparable to the polychaetes in size. Oligochaetes occur in a variety of habitats throughout the world. Most are burrowers in the soil, but the class also includes worms that inhabit wells, marshes, and swamps. Other species live under rocks on the seashore, in the leaves of tropical trees and vines, on the surface of glaciers, or on the gills of freshwater crayfish.
Oligochaete Anatomy
Like the polychaetes, oligochaetes have bodies divided into segments. However, they lack parapodia and, with a few exceptions, have relatively few and inconspicuous setae. The setae are usually arranged in four bundles on each segment; those of aquatic forms are longer than those of land forms. The setae of an earthworm may be felt as a roughness if one rubs a finger along its side.
Oligochaetes are less varied in their external form than the polychaetes, but are much more numerous. As many as 4,000 oligochaetes hameter of lake bottom, and about 9,000 in 1 square meter of meadow soil. In almost all oligochaetes, the head is a simple cone-shaped structure without sensory appendages. Light is detected by photoreceptor cells in the skin, usually concentrated toward the front of the animal.
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