This is the dangerous neon worm

2023-10-25 20:05:12

Bright blue, with a dashed bluish line that runs dorsally along its very long body, flanked by two yellow lines. This is the dangerous neon worm.

This would be its colloquial name, assigned because its morphology and color are reminiscent of the twisted letters of an illuminated advertisement. But we zoologists don’t like common names too much, they are not very specific. Depending on where we are, we can order a sandwich of Verdel, Rincha, Albacore, Sarda… and so on up to 47 different names for the same species, Mackerel, Scomber scombrus scientific name. If I say these two Latin words together, that binomial with which we designate species, any person in this world, whatever language they speak, no matter where they live, knows which fish I am referring to.

A bridge to the realm of the Norse gods

We have, therefore, to use a binomial to designate the new worm. We have given our pretty neon worm a mythological name: bifrost Tetranemertes. The first term, Tetranemertescorresponds to the genus and already gives us an idea of ​​which group the worm belongs to: it is a nemertino. The second, bifrostrefers to the bright rainbow bridge of the norse mythology, which extends between the earth inhabited by humans and the realm of the gods. A path as resplendent as the body of the Nemertine.

Nemertines and the longest living animal on Earth

Nemertines are a phylum of invertebrates with about 1,300 species, mainly marine, although there are some that have colonized rivers and land.

They are not uncommon among the algae or under the stones of the coast, but in general they tend to go quite unnoticed. Many measure just a few centimeters, although there is one species, A very long linewhich appears in the 1995 Guinness Book of Records as the longest living animal on Earthwith up to [60 metros de longitud].

Their most distinctive feature is the presence of a proboscis or proboscis with which they hunt their prey. The neon worm, bifrost Tetranemertes, and all the species of their class, the hoplonemertines, are true “knifes” that stab their prey. The proboscis has a punch, with its blade and its handle – stylet and base, to use zoological terms. With that stylet they pierce their victims, generally other worms or small crustaceans.

In these attacks they can lose the stylet and in the same proboscis they have pockets with reserve stylets, a kind of “knife drawer.”

Since punctures alone might prove insufficient to kill the prey, the puncture is usually poisoned. And it turns out that the Nemertines have developed an important toxic industry, cocktails of deadly substances.

Their poisons are not only used for attack, they are also defensive. Fish love worms, and if they see one walking on the seabed (or on a fisherman’s hook), they go there. But if it turns out that the worm is a nemertine, they discard it from the menu, nor do they try it. If they eat them by mistake, they quickly spit them out.

Because? It has to do with those striking colors that they display, those that make it look like a festival.

Warning: I am dangerous

What are those bright colors that make it look like a festival? Many animals, including wasps and salamanders, use color combinations that make them especially attractive. They have an aposematic, warning coloration. And what do they warn? Well, they are dangerous.

Some are poisonous, such as nemertines. Others, like the clownfish, do not, but they live with a stinging anemone. And finally, there are those who act “cocky,” who pretend to be dangerous, when in reality they are harmless. I have seen a woman run off a terrace who was terrified of wasps… at the flight of a fly that imitates them, a syrphid. This act of pretending to be someone you are not is known as Batesian mimicry, in honor of Henry Walter Bates, who observed it back in the 19th century in Amazonian butterflies.

Seven in one fell swoop

Does the title sound familiar to you? Comes from The Brave Little Tailor, the tale of the Brothers Grimm. The little tailor embroidered this phrase on his belt to commemorate his feat killing flies: “Seven in one fell swoop.” It is not about tell the storybut it is a good motto to present our work, since we have described seven new species of nemertines.

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Among them, the most striking is the neon worm (Bifrost Tetranemertes), who lives in the Caribbean. The other six have been found in places as distant as the Gulf of Mexico, Oman or Japan. In the Spanish waters of the Alboran Sea we collected the typical species of the genus, Tetranemertes antoninawhich could pass through a thick long reddish thread and whose molecular study allowed it to be assigned to the genus Tetranemertes the new species.

Although it may seem that this ending has the Thresholdian touch of “I’m going to talk about my book”, those of us who dedicate ourselves to “weirdoes” have to strive to teach something more about the lesser-known species. To delve deeper into our nemertine fauna, there is extensive information in the Doctoral Thesis of Alfonso Herrera-Bachillerwhere all the species of our waters are represented.