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Espirógrafo (Sabella discifera), Cabo de Palos, España, 2022-07-16, DD 48
Taken on 16 July 2022, 14:17:20
- Classification
- Photograph
- Museum
- Wikimedia Commons
- Rights
- CC BY-SA 4.0, as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Kids profiles and older: it shows nature, places, still life or a children's book. How works are placed
About this work
Ca. 5 centimetres (2.0 in) small slender peacock worm (Sabella discifera), Cape Palos, Spain. It's not a flower, plant or a coral but a segmented marine polychaete worm of the family Sabellidae that lives in a tube into which it can retract. S. discifera is a filter feeder and extends its radioles to catch phytoplankton and detritus. If you approach to them they retract instantly. The tube where the worm lives is calcareous and is attached to a rock, boulder or other hard surface and has a length of up to 5.2 centimetres (2.0 in). The tube is built by the worm using calcium stored in two white sacs on the ventral side of the second segment, or peristomium. The tube is fabricated by the glandular ventral shields on the other thoracic segments, where calcium is mixed with an organic secretion to make a paste. This is formed into shape by a collar found just behind the first segment, the prostomium. The anterior part of the worm protrudes from the tube and has a plume of about 40 feather-like radioles projecting from the peristomium, which also houses the two eyes and the mouth. A funnel-shaped lid or operculum covers the entrance to the tube when the animal retracts inside.
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