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Reteterebella queenslandia is a small (<100mm) sedentary polychaete (Hartman, 1963). It is typically dull blue/grey in colour with hundreds of white highly muscularised buccal tentacles extending from the anterior end. The tentacles form a ring around the pharynx and contain a dark circle at the tip, which is used for photoreception. The tentacles also have a ciliated grove down the middle, which is used to pass food to the polychaetes mouth and collect sediment to build tubes out of (Mathe and Barrett, 1993). The mouth is located in the centre of the oral/aboral axis (axial feeders). The mouth and pharynx is highly muscularised but lacks teeth or a visible proboscis. The primary function of the mouth is to coat particles of sand in mucus and sort them either as food particles (small particles) or tube building blocks (medium sized particles).
As well as photoreceptors, the buucal tentacles possess mechanoreceptors and possibly chemoreceptor for feeding. The body is cone shaped,with setae and chetae being heavily reduced anteriorly and absent posteriorly. R. queenslandia also have three pairs of extensively branched branchial trees that extend anteriorly. R queenslandia relies extensively on mucus production both for protection (in building its protective tube) and for feeding (Mathers and Bennett, 1993).
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