Ampharetinae are a subfamily of terebellid

Terebellida

Terebellida make up a suborder of the Polychaeta class, commonly referred to as "bristle worms". Together with the Sabellida, the Spionida and some enigmatic families of unclear taxonomic relationship , they make up the order Canalipalpata, one of the three main clades of polychaetes...

 "bristle worm" (class

Class (biology)

In biological classification, class is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, order, family, genus, and species, with class fitting between phylum and order...

 Polychaeta). As such, they belong to the order

Order (biology)

In scientific classification used in biology, the order is# a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, family, genus, and species, with order fitting in between class and family...

 Canalipalpata

Canalipalpata

Canalipalpata, also known as bristle-footed annelids or fan-head worms, is an order of polychaete worms, with 31 families in it including the Sabellida and the Alvinellidae, a family of deep-sea worms associated with hydrothermal vents.The Canalipalpata have no teeth or jaws. Most are filter feeders...

, one of the three main clade

Clade

A clade is a group consisting of a species and all its descendants. In the terms of biological systematics, a clade is a single "branch" on the "tree of life". The idea that such a "natural group" of organisms should be grouped together and given a taxonomic name is central to biological...

s of polychaetes. They are the largest subfamily of the Ampharetidae

Ampharetidae

Ampharetidae are a family of terebellid "bristle worm" . As such, they belong to the order Canalipalpata, one of the three main clades of polychaetes. They appear to be most closely related to the peculiar alvinellids which inhabit the deep sea, and somewhat less closely to the well-known trumpet...

, of which they contain far more than half of the described genera

Genera

Genera is a commercial operating system and development environment for Lisp machines developed by Symbolics. It is essentially a fork of an earlier operating system originating on the MIT AI Lab's Lisp machines which Symbolics had used in common with LMI and Texas Instruments...

.

The majority of ampharetines are marine organisms like usual for polychaetes. However, some members of this subfamily are among the rare euryhaline

Euryhaline

Euryhaline organisms are able to adapt to a wide range of salinities. An example of a euryhaline fish is the molly which can live in fresh, brackish, or salt water. The European shore crab is an example of a euryhaline invertebrate that can live in salt and brackish water...

 polychaetes, inhabiting brackish and freshwater

Freshwater

Fresh water is naturally occurring water on the Earth's surface in ice sheets, ice caps, glaciers, bogs, ponds, lakes, rivers and streams, and underground as groundwater in aquifers and underground streams. Fresh water is generally characterized by having low concentrations of dissolved salts and...

 habitat

Habitat

* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows*Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play** Space habitat, a space station intended as a permanent settlement...

. They are generally are smallish deposit feeders which frequently live in small tubes they build from mud or similar substrate, or burrow in the sand.