Bonellia viridis - Spoon Worm - one of the strangest ones you will ever see

[albertthiel]

This Spoon worm can enter your aquarium as an HH but it is not very likely but can happen ... one of the strangest worms though ...

http://www.seawater.no/fauna/echiura/viridis.html

Males are tiny and live within the Female ... read up more on them here :

http://species-identification.org/species.php?species_group=macrobenthos_misc&id=22

[sanny]

Woah, impressive.

[albertthiel]

Woah, impressive.

A most unusual creature indeed ... those worms are kind of different from the many others we encounter in the hobby ... e.g. the makes are tiny and do not live an independent life but live in a commensal relationship with the female who are the ones that are the large Spoon Worms (Echiurans and there are a number of genera and a number of species in each genus, derive their name from their appearance ... and the name actually means "serpent-like).

They are strange organisms for sure and I will be adding an article on them in the next issue of the Nano Reef Newsletter.

I thank a hobbyist by the name of Joe Savoy for bring to my attention that he had at least one of them in his aquarium and thinks he may have several.

You can read some general information on Spoon Worms here but to info on Bonellia viridis is a separate link

Echiura :  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echiura

Bonellia viridis or the so-called Green Spoon Worm :  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonellia_viridis

Enjoy ...

Albert