#spaghetti worm

It only held my attention for exactly the amount of seconds it takes me to go "woah what is that" and snap a shitty picture on my phone, and I pretty much forgot about it until I sat down at home with all my pictures ready to identify the creatures.

It didn't take me long to figure out it must be some kind of spaghetti worm, so I thought it would be easy to figure out what kind. The family name of spaghetti worm would surely imply that this world hosts at LEAST one autist deeply passionate about these creatures.

But no. No. Not one. Not one hyperfixated enthusiast has had the vim and vigor to compile a list of polychaete annelids of southcentral Alaska, LET alone take photos of them. There is ONE (1) study from 1948 readily available on the internet. I am reading it, thanks for asking.

I've found myself suddenly deeply passionate about spaghetti worms, abandoned by the world of niche internet microcommunities. I am sending emails to my local coastal wildlife experts. I am doing my duty, as a certified member of the autism community. I have been shown my task by the autism distribution system, I must take these creatures under my wing.

You can imagine why the family is called spaghetti worms

Luminous lump of spaghetti

An image of the unnamed spaghetti worm.

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].

This is a Spaghetti Worm. (Lanice conchilega)

He’s a member of a family of polychaete worm called Terebellidae. There’s basically two parts to him. A digestive system that stays buried in the sand bed. And a mass of elongate prostomial tentacles that splay out over the sea floor. These spaghetti like protuberances grab anything edible that may happen to fall to the sea floor. They are common in reef or live rock aquariums and are an essential part in the natural cycle of things for their role in processing uneaten food and organic waste.

Now usually when a client asks me “what’s that thing?” (referring to the spaghetti worm)

I COULD answer with the long ass explanation above.

But instead I answer “Oh, that’s that thing that ate Boba Fett in Return of the Jedi.”

So far not a single client has gotten it.

Like earthworms, spaghetti worms' bodies are segmented.They can grow up to 12 inches long with feeding tentacles reaching 3 feet long.Spaghetti worms build elaborate tubes for themselves, either in sediment or in crevices between rocks.

The worm secretes its own "cement" from glands on its belly, then lines its tube home with coarse sand and shell fragments. Little hooks along the sides of the worm grip the walls of the burrow and securely anchor the body inside.

Once snuggled down, the worm sends out feeding tentacles which constantly search the ocean floor for just about anything dead, dying or deposited there.The moveable tentacles bear tiny hairlike structures along their surface and are able to curl up on themselves to form a groove.

When a tentacle finds something to eat, it forms such a groove and beats its tiny hairs, thus moving the food to the mouth. Sometimes a tentacle lassoes the food and drags it to the mouth, where the worm's lips wipe the tentacle clean.