You Said You Wanted Asks

you said you wanted asks

originally I was gonna raid you with flying spinning shark gifs but your askbox doesn't have images so I'm giving the next best thing:

my entire powerpoint on bobbit worms. that I made at 3AM someday cuz I was bored

Bobbit worms (scientific name Eunice Aphroditois) are polychaetes known for their strong jaws and rarity. Like all polychaetes, they have segmented bodies, like underwater, and have poly (greek word for many/a lot) chaetae. Bobbit worms bury underneath the sea floor, and if you're lucky during a mud dive or sea floor exploration, you might even see one. Bobbit worms can grow from 1 to 3 metres in length (reaching sexual maturity at one metre in length) and 2-4 centimetres wide. This doesn't stop them from being a formidable enemy, though.

Bobbit worms have sharp jaws, a quick reaction speed, and so much more - but the key to how they hunt is in their five black-and-white striped sensory antennae. When bobbit worms hunt, they don't move at all - in fact, they can't even see. What bobbit worms do is they stay upright in the sea floor, which makes them look like a colourful plant. When its antennae detect a fish, crustacean or other prey nearby, they slowly sink into the sea floor. When the unsuspecting fish comes to investigate, the bobbit worm uses the friction it has from being so far underneath the sea floor to quickly whirl up, bite the fish, and pull it back down underneath the sea floor to consume its prey.

Bobbit worms eat small fish (for example lionfish), other worms, detritus and kelp/other algae! They're also mostly nocturnal, and do most of their hunting then, and in the daytime return to their burrow. Only mostly, however - if hungry enough, they can and will hunt at daytime, it's just not as common.

Bobbit worms can actully reproduce both sexually and asexually! Though, they never carry their eggs. Female bobbit worms release pheromones into the water to attract the males, who release sperm into that water. Then, the female releases the fertilised eggs there! And that's that. However, now for the asexual way - bobbit worms can separate themselves, effectively making clones/chidren, being able to regrow their heads and tails. Anyway - when the eggs hatch, they become larva, then go into their juvenile stage, then become an adult - and as I mentioned earlier, usually, sexual maturity begins when they're around a metre in length.

fun fax:

many worm-like creatures in movies (for example the graboids in Tremors, the worm in Dune) were based off of bobbit worms! they're easily identifiable by the sand bubbling before they quickly spring up out of the ground, etc.

if you shine a light on them, you'll find their bodies are iridescent! they reflect a pretty rainbow sheen when you do.

the earliest recorded trace of a bobbit worm was a fossilised bobbit worm burrow from 400 million years ago.

bobbit worms don't have genitals! on top of that, they're also usually hermaphrodites.

the spikes (chaetae) on a bobbit worm's sides are poisonous, and if handled right, can do permanent nerve damage and cause paralysis!

bobbit worms are called bobbit worms because of an incident in 1997 where woman lorena bobbit cut off her husband's penis. This was because at the time, people thought bobbit worms do the same. they do not.

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I love bobbit worms...

thank you for this