Animal of the week|The Christmas tree worm frolics in coral in all the colors of the rainbow.
The summary is made by artificial intelligence and checked by a human.
The Christmas tree worm (Spirobranchus giganteus) is a colorful worm that lives in corals.
The Christmas tree worm can live up to 40 years and is colored in different shades of the rainbow.
With the help of protrusions growing from the head, the worm breathes and eats.
Either Is the fir tree decorated, the Christmas tree built? Now is a good time to have a glass of warm water and sit down to learn about a creature called the Christmas tree worm.
Don’t worry, it’s not some nasty surprise that comes with a Christmas tree or a wood-eating pest, but actually a cute apparition. To see it, you have to learn to dive or get a reef aquarium.
Christmas tree worm eli Spirobranchus giganteus is a creature that lives in tropical corals and is colorfully crazy. It grows out of the coral just like a small, decorated fir tree. You might think it’s an aquatic plant, but it’s actually a worm.
The worm itself clings tightly to the coral, a tube made of lime, which the worm secretes around itself. Spruce-like protrusions are a kind of fan-like antennae that grow from the worm’s head.
With their help, the worm breathes and eats. The whisk-like gills filter tiny microscopic organisms from the water into the worm’s mouth, and at the same time filter oxygen. The creatures are small: the body of the worm hiding in the coral is about five centimeters long, and the “Christmas trees” a couple of centimeters in each direction.
Christmas trees glow in all the colors of the rainbow. They are available in yellow, blue, orange and, just in time for Christmas, red and white.
A Christmas tree brought home won’t last more than a month, but a Christmas tree worm can keep glowing for as long as 40 years.
During that time, it still doesn’t learn much about life or become spiritually enriched, even though it has a rudimentary nervous system. Otherwise, it could be doing philosophy, when it’s good to hang out in coral, in warm waters.
Sure the worm has enemies. A fish might try to eat it. But the worm is not helpless. When the fin approaches, the worm pulls its Christmas tree into the coral with lightning speed and closes the hole with a kind of flap, which still has thorns.
The eyes with which the worm senses light and shadows twinkle under the Christmas tree. It would be quite disturbing to have such a creature as a Christmas tree in the living room. It would really monitor who is nice and who is naughty.