Mud Dragon

Image: WoRMS Editorial Board

From the sounds of it, this must surely be the lowliest of all dragons. Fire dragons soar overhead, frost dragons slumber in beautiful ice lairs, swamp dragons brood in their stinking miasmas, even flightless flu dragons get to lie in bed all day.

What do poor old Mud Dragons get? They get to wriggle. In the mud. Hmmm... Someone drew a very short straw.

The Blues VII

Image: Cláudio Dias Timm
Porphyrospiza caerulescens

Uh oh! It's that time of year again when all looks lost, all looks cold, all looks... blue. Blue Monday strikes again. The attic groans under the weight of Christmas decorations already laden with a thin layer of dust. Christmas gifts have lost their lustre and joined the rest of your belongings as mere possessions cluttering your life. And if you don't follow through with your New Year's resolutions this time, you'll have to get a new Christmas jumper to ease over that ever-expanding belly.

But worry not! Or continue worrying, just be sure to do it with friends. Friends like the Blue Finch.

Penis Worm

Image: University of Bristol

OK. Roll up your sleeves, put on your surgical gloves, prepare the censor bars. It's time for the Penis Worm.

No sniggering at the back!

March of the Firesocks

Firesocks! Sea Pickles! More to the point, Pyrosomes!

And a LOT of them.

Divided Flatworm

Image: Zack
Pseudoceros dimidiatus

Is the Divided Flatworm really divided?

It's certainly indecisive...

Snot Living

Look at that beautiful house!

If you find yourself saying, "'s'not a house," then you're close. It's a snot house.

Derby Hat Bryozoan

Image: Donna Pomeroy
Eurystomella bilabiata

Oh dear, someones's dropped their... hat?

Strange monstrosa

We got ourselves a new monstrosa! Or at least one of their socks.

Bluebell Sea Squirt

Image: Arjan Gittenberger
Perophora namei

Squirts on a stick!

Carpet Flatworm

Image: Seascapeza
Thysanozoon brocchii

Oooooo, look at that shaggy carpet! Can't you feel the soft papillae tickle your feet and squelch between your toes?

Persian Carpet Flatworm

Image: divemecressi
Pseudobiceros bedfordi

It's a flying, Persian rug!

Golden Star Tunicate

Image: Deryk Tolman
Botryllus schlosseri

Aquatic wallpaper!

The Blobs!

Check out this beautiful octopus! Is that a devil costume?

Strange Worm

Strange by name, strange by nature...

Acoela

Image: Samuel Chow

How to live with almost no body at all!

Mystery Mushroom-shaped Deep Sea Jelly Animal

Image: Just et al.

Scientists have finally revealed the Mystery Mushroom-shaped Deep Sea Jelly Animal to an excited and baffled populace! Isn't it exciting and baffling?

Acorn Worm

Image: David Shale

It's a dangerous business trying to handle an Acorn Worm. Not because it can harm YOU in any way, but because they're so soft and fragile that they're liable to fall apart in your hands.

And yet this delicate worm is just a few wrong turnings on the evolutionary tree from having its very own backbone!

Peanut Worm

Image: Kawauchi, Gisele Y

It's a worm that looks kinda like a peanut sometimes. They pretty much always look like internal organs, though. Which is odd because they don't actually have all that many internal organs of their own.

Jaw Worm

Image: Matthew Hooge

Molluscs range from mussels who sit around in their shell all day doing nothing, to active, wide-eyed, predatory squid. Arthropods can have 6 legs, 8 legs or several hundred legs. Chordates can have lungs and a backbone, no lungs and a backbone or no lungs and no backbone either.

These are among the most famous and diverse of the animal phyla; splendidly bountiful branches of the tree of life. But let's not allow their mind-boggling variety cause us to overlook the more stark branches with their tiny animal life that barely anyone has ever heard of.

Turbellarian Flatworm

Image: Richard Ling

Flatworms! They're flat worms. So they're Flatworms!

Proof at last that biology isn't all "deoxyribonucleic acid" and "atrichous izorhiza"!