>>> James Blake 08/21/10 2:59 AM >>>
Bodega Bay is better known to movie goers as the location for Alfred
Hitchcock's thriller, "THE BIRDS."
It is also where I collected a lot of worms and data for my taxonomic and
larval studies. The swimming worms were likely *Platynereis bicanaliculata*.
Jim Blake
On Fri, Aug 20, 2010 at 4:24 AM, Geoff Read wrote:
> A mystery solved. But are there really people who devote their whole lives
> to the study of these creatures?
> Surely not.
>> Geoff
>> San Francisco Chronicle online
>> July 25
> The answer man: Q: "I shined my light down into the water (at 11 p.m., Spud
> Point Marina in Bodega Bay) and saw hundreds of small red, swimming
> worm-like creatures. Any idea what they could be?" - John Alexander. A:
> These rarely seen organisms were featured in the horror film, "Attack of the
> Red Worm-Like Creatures." You may remember it. Actually, I described this
> episode to three experts, who said they had never heard of such a
> phenomenon. Anybody out there have a clue? "There's a lot out in the ocean
> we still can't explain," said marine expert Craig Stone.
>> Aug 01
> Last Sunday's outdoors column included John Alexander's query about
> "hundreds of small, red swimming worm-like creatures" at night at Bodega
> Bay. What were they? That mystery attracted responses from across the
> country, and several other readers reported that they had also seen the red
> squiggly things. Scuba diver John Yasaki from Monterey even encountered them
> when they were attracted to his lights on night dives.
>> Rich Mooi of San Francisco State University, chairman of the department of
> invertebrate zoology and curator of echinoderms, provided the answer: They
> are a species of polychaetes (annelids) known as "bristle worms." In
> response to my note that they were featured in the horror film "Attack of
> the Red Worm-Like Creatures," Mooi wrote that they were unlikely to attack
> anyone. "They were far too busy engaging in the necessary and distracting
> act of having worm sex." Many others said they'd like to see the movie
> anyway.
--
James A. Blake, Ph.D.
Marine & Coastal Center
AECOM Environment, NE Region
89 Water Street
Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543
Tel: 508-457-7900; FAX: 5008-457-7595
E-Mail: James.Blake from aecom.com and
jablake9 from gmail.com
NIWA is the trading name of the National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research Ltd.
