#fanworm

????

FANWORMS?? THE FLUFFY THINGS THAT LIVE IN TUBES ON CORAL REEFS AND HYDROTHERMAL VENTS? THEY'RE IN THE LAKE DOWN THE ROAD?

Of the 10,000+ species of polycheates, only like 168 of them live in freshwater and only a fraction of those are fanworms, and ur telling me I found some of these guys with my $30 microscope from Amazon?

There's so little about them I can't even find a picture of what I have, much less ID it, without heading into some scientific publishing.

Mediterranean fanworm (Sabella spallanzanii)

My first time seeing this and I was like woah… feathers? Well is actually a sabellid worm aka Fan-worm or Featherduster worm :D With only this picture, is probably hard to see it as a worm, the feathery crown is on-top of the worm’s head.

Those feather like tentacles are used for filter-feeding and known to withdraw when touched or when it senses danger. Guess I wasn’t that dangerous haha maybe it retracted after I left, not sure 🙄

http://www.wildsingapore.com/wildfacts/worm/polychaeta/sabellidae.htm

It's the big one in the middle. These large tubeworms, probably Protula sp., are reasonably common washed up on Australian beaches. The fanworm's calcareous tubes are grown attached to shells, or any other firm surface, and can form the bulk of fist-sized masses of tubeworms, oysters, and other marine creatures.