>John K. Weaver wrote:
>> The orbiniid worm I'm studing, Naineris dendritica, ingests
>> alot of woody debris which occassionally cuts through and splits the
>> body walls posteriorly.
>and Geoff Read wrote:
>Ouch!
>I presume this and the tangling filaments are not occurring just in
>the unnatural situation in dishes where worms secreting mucus get
>themselves into bad trouble when they can only partly anchor
>themselves to the bottom. Tough stuff is mucus ...
Splits the body wall, or punctures and slices through the body wall
(making for a potentially re-sealable wound?). For a rather distant
analogy, Don Wobber reported (and captured on movie film) many years
ago the phenomenon of how the large many-rayed sunflower seastar
(asteroid) Pycnopodia helianthoides in Monterey Bay, California,
captures post-spawned and spent squid (Loligo opalescens) and eats
them -- with the squid's long (15 cm), chitinous pen then being
forced up and through the seastar's aboral body surface (ouch!?) for
expulsion!
James T. Carlton
Professor of Marine Sciences
Director, Maritime Studies Program
Williams College -- Mystic Seaport
P. O. Box 6000, 75 Greenmanville Avenue
Mystic, Connecticut 06355 U.S.A.
