What is/was this?

Anyone know what this is (or was?)?

I got as far as animal in the animal vegetable mineral test

BABY, come to mama!!

That's one of mine and a really really nice close up. It's the tube belonging to a species in the polychaete genus Lanice. They're really neat - they construct these "spokes" out of sand grains & mucus. If you look closely you'll see that the spokes are made of single sand grains placed end to end. The worms use their tentacles to drape mucus strands across the spokes just like a spider web and for the same purpose. Tasty bits of food get caught on the mucus & the worm gets dinner.

How nice of you to post a worm that isn't a christmas tree or a fireworm!

That's awesome info ... Thanks!!!

I'd never have guessed it was a polychaete. Would it be possible to see the worm out feeding? What would it look like?

Even better close-up! Wow, look at how well you can see the single sand grains!

I don't know if the worm ever sticks its head out under normal conditions. Probably all you would see are the tentacles moving on the spokes and maybe the gills. It's in the family Terebellidae. If you go to this webpage you'll see another terebellid (different genus) with the same general body plan:

http://www.nhm.org/guana/bvi-invt/bvi-surv...rm-09/h0797.htm

Leslie,

I'm glad you like it!

I just came back from a dive, Almost had a picture of a worm like that!!!! It was another sad news story though ... it had been caught by a brittle star ... it gets worse though ... when I went to take a photo a wrasse stoll them both

Those worm structures are pretty common. I'm going to be checking them out now to see if I can find anyone at home. Thanks (again) for the ID ... all the extra info is so cool :>

I was going to post some pics for you to ID but I have literally just found in Edgar ... Filogran implexa I think ... it was a big branching colony ... pretty coordinated architecture for a bunch of little worms ....

That's a fabulous creature. I love browsing the ID forum!

That's a fabulous creature. I love browsing the ID forum!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Me too. I feel so fortunate to have found WP and then, even better, have Alex ask me to join the team!