Worm I.D.?

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FOX

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Saw a new one in my refugium last night. It appeared to be a worm about 2 1/2-3" in length, maybe 1/2 mm in diameter and transparent/white in color. Couldn't tell the head from the tail. Seemed to be scavenging for something. Any ideas?

FOX

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Fox,

It sounds like the tentacle of some sort of worm. Most everything else would have some other distinguishing features, and the threadlike dimensions also indicate a tentacle.

Now whose tentacle is the question, and it could belong to several types of bristle worms, some mollusks, or some other animals.

Cheers, Ron
 
FOX,
It's probably some sort of bristle worm. I wouldn't worry about it. It's probably a good thing. Check out my post. I have a humungo worm in my reef. I think it's kewl.
Besides, it's a scavenger. Nice and big, with gigantic teeth and huge spiny bristles. Enough to bite or shear a mans arm off with a single pass! So I warn the if yea not a man of valor...Death awaits you all with nasty sharp pointy teethies!
Did I just go to my special place that no one knows about?
Later,
Bill

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Fox,

Need a bit more of a description. Was it coming out of burrow or hole in a rock? Any coloration or patterning on it?

Are you sure of the dimensions - you are describing a worm 2.5 to 3 inches long and 1/50th of an inch in thickness - true?

Cheers, Ron
 
Ron,

It may be slightly larger in diameter, like maybe a full mm, but my description is close. At first, I saw it crawling out from a hole in a rock. It seemed to be sort of checking to see if it was safe or something. Eventually it got up near the glass, which is only a couple inches from where it came out of the rock. I tried to tap the glass and wave my hand near it to see if it reacted, but it didn't seem to be able to see an movement. No coloration or patterning whatsoever. Just plain transparent/white.

FOX

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[This message has been edited by FOX (edited 11-22-1999).]
 
Ron,

O.K. I watched this thing real close over the weekend and you seem to be correct. It is a tentacle, and in fact there are two of them coming from the same "animal". I actually found several pairs of them, at least 20 pair. I slowly put a pair of tweezers in the water and found that whatever the tentacles are coming from, seems to take individual peices of sand and adhere them to itself somehow, forming a sort of column approximately 1/8" in diameter and maybe 1/2" long and the tentacles reach out from that "column". Does this give you any clues?

FOX

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Fox,

It is either a spionid or a chaetopterid polychaete worm. Here is a picutre of what worms in these two groups look like coming out of a tube.
http://www.animalnetwork.com/fish/aqfm/1998/june/wb/photo3.asp

Basically these groups are two of the myriad of "bristle" worm groups that live in small tubes that they secrete. They feed on plankton or particulate material. The worms have to be removed from the tube to distinguish the representatives of the two groups. On natural reefs spionids are often very abundant, but in our reefs chaetopterids are generally the more common variety.

See Alf Nilsen's article in the most recent "Marine Fish and Reef USA - 2000 Annual" for a good discussion and photos of them in and out of tubes.

Cheers, Ron
 
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