10-Foot Bobbit Worm Is the Ocean’s Most Disturbing Predator

[Ichingcarpenter]

This is Eunice aphroditois, also known as the bobbit worm, a mix between the Mongolian death worm, the Graboids from Tremors, the Bugs from Starship Troopers, and a rainbow — but it’s a really dangerous rainbow, like in Mario Kart. And it hunts in pretty much the most nightmarish way imaginable, digging itself into the sea floor, exposing a few inches of its body — which can grow to 10 feet long — and waiting.


Using five antennae, the bobbit worm senses passing prey, snapping down on them with supremely muscled mouth parts, called a pharynx. It does this with such speed and strength that it can split a fish in two. And that, quite frankly, would be a merciful exit. If you survive initially, you get to find out what it’s like to be yanked into the worm’s burrow and into untold nightmares.

A mix between the Mongolian death worm, the Graboids from Tremors, the Bugs from Starship Troopers, and a rainbow.
“What happens next is rather unknown, especially because they have not been observed directly,” Luis F. Carrera-Parra and Sergio I. Salazar-Vallejo, ecologists specializing in annelid polychaetes at El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR) in Campeche, Mexico, wrote in a joint email to WIRED. “We think that the eunicid injects some narcotizing or killing toxin in their prey animal, such that it can be safely ingested — especially if they are larger than the worm — and then digested through the gut.”

Before we go any further, let’s just go ahead and get this out of the way. The bobbit worm may or may not be named after John Bobbitt, whose misadventures won’t be elaborated on here. The story goes that an underwater photographer saw the worm’s powers of … amputation as being analogous to those of John’s wife Lorena. But according to Anja Schulze, a marine biologist at Texas A&M University at Galveston, the origin of the name is far from clear.


http://planetsave.com/2013/08/01/bobbit-worm-eunice-aphroditois-giant-super-aggressive-worm-attack-sting-video-etc/

[Surya Gayatri]

1. How gorgeously coloured it is!

Even as a cousin to the dreaded "Mongolian death worm", it's one beautiful creature.

[Countdown_3_2_1]

2. Ever since Lorena...I fear anything named Bobbit.

and this is freakin 10 feet long and can slice things in two?

I am never ever going swimming.

[Scuba]

3. Crikey mate, she's a beaut!

[PADemD]

4. From the article

Back in March 2009, the Blue Reef Aquarium in Newquay, Cornwall had an interesting experience when one of the worms found its way into a display tank:

The entire tank had to be emptied of its coral, rocks and plants, after the aquarium staff’s traps failed to turn up the culprit. After emptying the tank though, the meter-long E. aphroditois that had been chopping the coral up and killing its inhabitants was finally found.

http://planetsave.com/2013/08/01/bobbit-worm-eunice-aphroditois-giant-super-aggressive-worm-attack-sting-video-etc/

[MannyGoldstein]

5. A Honey Badger with scuba gear would be a good match:

[Little Star]

6. It's pretty but still gave me the chills just looking at it. k&r

[BlueJazz]

7. Oh Yeah....He's a fuckin' cutie-pie. His invite to the big party is revolked.

[BadgerKid]

8. I think I see the Mandelbrot set there. n/t

[X_Digger]

9. These show up from time to time in hobby aquarist tanks.

They can come in unintentionally on live coral fragments or live rock shipments.

Here's the story of another hitchhiker found in one hobbyist's tank- http://www.oregonreef.com/sub_worm.htm