#segmented worm

Green Earthworm (Aporrectodea smaragdina), family Lumbricidae, Slovenia

photographs by Ton van Haaren

Aphrodita aculeata or Sea Mouse 

You and I need to have a serious talk about the Nereid worms!!!

Pile Worm, Clam Worm, or Cinder Worm (Alitta succinea), family Nereidae, off the coast of Belgium

photograph by Hans Hillewaert

Sand Worm, Sea Worm, or King Ragworm (Alitta virens), family Nereidae, off the coast of Russia

photograph by Alexander Semenov 

Mussel Worm (Nereis vexillosa), family Nereidae, off the coast of BC, Canada

photograph by Marilynne Box

And because you are a platinum level member, and we love ALL polychaetes here, here is a green Sand Mason Worm for you as well...

Green Sand Mason Worm (Lanice viridis), family Terbellidae, Lizard Island, Australia

Described in 2013.

This is a post about a marine worm. Specifically Amaeana gremarei, a worm found in the Gulf of Lion in the Mediterranean Sea [1].

While the individuals defining this species were originally collected in 2006, 2017, and 2018, they weren’t formally defined until 2020 [1]. This was because their taxonomy was cleared up as part of the Spaghetti Project, a taxonomic research project aiming to categorise tubiculous polychaetes at the French coast. These animals are called Spaghetti Worms because of their non-retractable, grooved tentacles around their mouths. They use these for their selective deposit feeding [2].

They are found at depths of around 30-100 m in mixed sand types. They’re considered a larger species of Spaghetti Worm, being around 1.6 cm in length and around 2 mm in width. They were named after Antoine Grémare, who sent in the preserved worms used in the study [1].

..it just keeps getting the shelves all wet.  There are two families of worms where the front end of the worm is modified into a crown of ciliated tentacles (the feather duster): the Sabellidae, and the Serpulidae. Both types of worms live within a tube that they make themselves.  The Sabellidae make their tubes out of a parchment like material, and the serpulidae make their tubes out of calcium carbonate (the same thing that makes up sea shells).  Both families use their ciliated feeding tentacles to filter tiny plankton from the water for food. Both sabellid and serpulid worms are polychaetes (which means “many hairs”, or in this case many bristles) which are cousins to the earthworms (which are oligochaetes - “few hairs”).  Polychaetes and Oligochaeates are both segmented worms in the phylum Annelida.

The bright red and white feather dusters above are the feeding tentacles of the worm Serpula vermicularis which is a member of the Serpulidae family.  This calcareous feather duster worms makes white, random, snaky  tubes cemented along one edge to a hard surface (in the picture below it was a pier piling in Puget Sound near Seattle, Washington).  When this worm pulls back into its tube (and they can do this remarkably fast) they close off the end of the tube with a red plug called an operculum.  This makes it harder for predators to eat them.

Serpula vermicularis has a huge range. It is found on the west coast of the US from Alaska to San Diego, along the European coast, and many parts of the western Pacific and Indian Oceans.

References

Morris,R.H., Abbott,D.P., and Haderlie, E.C. (1980). Intertidal Invertebrates of California. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA.

Phylum: Annelida

Class: Polychaeta

Most species of annelids (segmented worms) have eyes.  Earthworms are a rare exception.