Though generally cylindrical, the body is divided into several distinct regions, having a short cream-coloured, extendible proboscis, an orange collar and a long yellow and grey trunk.

It favours areas with a high concentration of calcium carbonate provided by mollusc shell fragments, barnacle plates, foraminifera and other invertebrate debris.

It feeds by trapping particle with the mucus that coats its proboscis, and then wafting these back to the mouth by means of cilia.

It is also a filter feeder, using pharyngeal cilia to create a current which pumps water through its mouth, where plankton and other organic particles are extracted, and out through its gill pores.

When the larvae hatch, they pass through a number of ciliated, spherical and hemispherical developmental stages before becoming vermiform juveniles and developing the proboscis, collar and trunk of the adult.

The juveniles can travel forward and backwards by beating their cilia, moving as far as a body length in two seconds.