ID Please

[hcs3]

http://localhost:1094/Homesteads/saltyendeavors/files/sponge1.jpg

hey dr ron

this is the sponge i mentioned to you back during the minnesota trip. it is not the sponge i'm trying to ID, but rather the worm that is living inside of it. i have many of these worms, but all of them remain in the sandbed.

now that you have a pic of the worm, i want to make sure we were talking about the same thing. you mentioned this worm uses all of it's arms to breath, rather than eat which is what i thought it was doing. do you still have the same belief?

TIA

henry

[rshimek]

Hi Henry,

Can't help. No joy on the picture. Can you try to post it again?

[hcs3]

attempt #2

http://saltyendeavors.homestead.com/files/sponge1.jpg

[rshimek]

Hi Henry,

There are 2 worms visible in the sponge. One is a more or less standard feather duster at roughly 4 o'clock from the center of the field. This is a sabellid (Family Sabellidae), and they use their tentacles to simulataneously feed and eat.

The other worm is at six o'clock from the center of the image, down in the groove of the sponge. It has brownish tentacles extending over the surface of the sponge. This could one of about 3 types of worms (Terebellid, Trichobranchid or Cirratulid). Which of these it is depends on where the tentacles arise. If they arise from along the body of the worm, versus one end, it is a Cirratulid. In this case, the tentacles are wholly respiratory. A lot of folks have these in the sand. The worm lives buried in the sand, eating sediment, while extending the tentacles upward through the sediment to the water above the sand - all the more oxygen to breathe with up there.

If the tentacles arise from one end of the worm, the head, and spread over the sediment, moving back and forth, it will be either a Trichobranchid or a Terebellid. Bristle structure and gill pattern distinguish these two, but that is unimportant. These are "spaghetti worms" and in addition to the feeding tentacles, the worm typically has bright reddish gills a ways back of the head.

I suspect this worm is one of the latter two types, but I can not confirm that (indeed NO ONE can confirm that without removing the worm from the sponge and checking for where the gills are.

Sorry not to be of more help, but that's the breaks in the identification game. Nice picture. :D