Key facts

Length up to 75 cm, width up to 5 mm. Strikingly coloured as a Christmas gift: reddish brown with four longitudinal white stripes (mid-dorsal, mid-ventral and lateral) and up to 200 transverse white stripes placed at progressively shorter distances posteriorly. Head broad and rounded, body tapering posteriorly. Found in various substrates (sand, gravel, shell gravel, empty polychaete tubes).