A family of marine flatworms (Maricola), represented in freshwater by a single species, Bdellasimilis barwickii: length approximately 6mm, found in the limb-pits of turtles from a number of rivers in NSW. In outline this species is ovate, with prominent paired adhesive organs at the posterior end of the body. The lateral margin is ruffled. There are two eye spots placed well back from the anterior tip. The mouth is mid-ventral, the pharynx plicate (ie, muscular, and with a muscular protrusible tube from the inner surface) and directed backward, the gut 3-branched (as in Dugesiidae). Movement is leech-like.

Bdellasimilis barwickii. was originally described as an aberrant freshwater triclad (suborder Paludicola), and was transferred to Maricola and assigned to family Procerodidae by Ball (1977). Procerodidae has been described (Parker, 1982) as a catch-all for those marine triclads which fail to fit into the other marine families.

References:

Ball, I.R (1977) A monograph of the genus Spathula (Platyhelminthes: Turbellaria: Tricladida) Australian Journal of Zoology Supplementary Series 47: 1-43.

Parker, S.P. (1982) Synopsis and Classification of Living Organisms. Volume 2. McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York.