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Quantitative Structure Activity Relationships (QSAR) predict relative toxicity of a family of chemicals from fundamental and surrogate molecular qualities. Most QSARs are developed for organic toxicants, with inorganic toxicants (metals) being under-represented. Successful predictive models for relative toxicity of divalent metal ions using ion characteristics have been produced using Microtox^®, a 15 min microbial bioassay. The present study extends this approach to longer exposure durations (24 h), and a more complex organism (metazoan). Twenty-four hour LC50s (expressed as total metal concentration) for the free-living soil nematode, C. elegans were determined for Ca, Cd, Cu, Hg, Mg, Mn, Ni, Pb, and Zn in an aqueous medium. Relative metal toxicity was predicted with least squares linear regression and several ion characteristics. Toxicity was most effectively predicted (r² = 0.89) with ¦ log K _OH ∣ (where …