Social Feather Duster Worm

Image: Nick Hobgood
Bispira brunnea

It's the cluster duster!

In my experience, feather dusters are often gregarious—I usually find them in packs of three or four, sometimes six—but the Social Feather Duster Worm puts those numbers to shame!

Seventh Seal of the Hallowe'en Horrors

It's Halloween! That time of year when we eat humble pie with death, eat a whole bottle of bitter pills with darkness and eat lead with evil. Woo!

Tangled Tubeworm

Image: John Turnbull
Filograna implexa

Worms. Lots and lots of worms. Uncountable hundreds and thousands of worms all hanging out together in a home of their own making.

What would that look like?

Red-spotted Horseshoe

Image: Alfiero Brisotto
Protula tubularia

Surely, it's a peacock?

Two Worms a' Weirding

Image: NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, 2015 Hohonu Moana

Avert your eyes! This worm is completely NAKED!

It's a Scale Worm... but he has no scales! In their place is what looks like a smooth, gelatinous blimp of translucent flab tip-toeing on feet made of bristles. It's disgusting. It's beautiful. It's precisely the kind of thing we expect from the deep sea.

Image: NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, 2015 Hohonu Moana

On the other hand, here's another polychaete worm with a more stylish sense of the peculiar.

It looks to me like she might be related to the Green Bomber and the Squidworm, and she's splendidly attired in luxurious, feathery bristles. I'm sure she uses them to swim through the gloomy water in a manner that looks both disgusting and beautiful. Because when you live in the deep sea, that's what you do.

A Worm With Ambition

I love worms that have ambition!

Spionid

Image: Moorea Biocode

It's a worm! With a face made of worms!

Worm in a Wig?

We all know how dark and drab it is in the abyssal depths of the sea. All is inky blackness, with the bottom composed primarily of deserts of mud decorated with drab stones.

Slime Fan Worm

Image: John Turnbull
Myxicola infundibulum

I thought most worms were fans of slime?

Sternaspid Worm

Image: Kelly Sendall, Sergio I. Salazar-Vallejo

Ah...

These would be one of the less worm-like worms!

Nereiphylla paretti

Image: National Museums Northern Ireland

Check out this beauty!

Nereiphylla paretti is a 30 cm (foot) long worm from European waters like the North Sea, English Channel and Mediterranean. They're active predators who scour the shallows in search of prey.

Nereiphylla paretti is an annelid, or segmented worm, so-called because its body is divided into segments.

More precisely it's a polychaete, also known as a bristle worm, because each segment bears a collection of tough bristles sprouting out of the sides.

Even more precisely it's a Phyllodocid, or paddle worm, because some of those bristles have turned into large, flattened paddles.

I don't know what these paddles are for but man, when each one is edged with yellow it sure looks pretty!

Tiny Chinese dragon!

Image: Moorea Biocode

Look at this guy!

I know very little about him but apparently he's a polychaete worm in the the Phyllodocidae family, also known as paddle worms. That means he's probably an active predator who wanders the sea floor in search of small prey.

Paddle worms range greatly in size and this one looks like he's on the smaller side of the scale.

Image: Alias 0591

Others get much bigger.

The Blues IV

Image: Ted

Uh oh! It's that time of year again - Blue Monday! The worst Monday of them all.

Giant Red Leech

It's nightmare in paradise!

Myzostomida

Image: Pbsouthwood

Parasitic worms... on stilts!

Spirorbis

Image: Malcolm Storey, bioimages.org.uk

Oooooh! This is what happens when snails and worms share ideas! Who new annelids were into biomimicry?

The Blues III

Image: JJ Harrison

It's the most mis'rable time of the year!
When your tears are upwelling
And everyone's telling you be of good cheer
It's the most mis'rable time of the year!

Coco Worm

Image: Bernard DUPONT
Protula bispiralis

Another year blossoms into being. Here in what we like to call Dear Old Blighty it's a reassuringly cold, grey and wet day. At least some of the old certainties still apply!

Ice Cream Cone Worm

Image: Hans Hillewaert

Worm flavoured ice cream!

JAWS: Bobbit Worm

Image: Ria Tan, wildsingapore.com

It's always a treat to catch up on the murderous antics of old friends!