December 14, 2012
The Christmas Tree Worm, Decorating Coral Reefs Year-Round
Photo by Nick Hobgood
During the holiday season, even the ocean gets in the spirit! The Christmas tree worm (Spirobranchus giganteus) is a type of polychaete, a group of segmented worms mostly found in the ocean. It lives on tropical coral reefs and resembles a fluffy fir tree adorned with colored ornaments. Each worm has two tree-like appendages that are used to breathe and to catch meals of plankton floating by.
The Christmas tree worms are sedentary, attaching themselves to coral cover that act as their home base. Once attached, they create a calcium carbonate tube that they can then retract into for protection. The fluffy, eye-catching section of the worms that attract divers are small in size, usually not bigger than a few inches, but the remainder of the worm (hiding in its burrow) can be almost twice that size.
Check out more holiday-themed ocean animals and phenomena on the Ocean Portal!
Photo by Nick Hobgood
A colorful “forest” of Christmas tree worms. Photo by Nick Hobgood
Read more articles about the holidays in our Smithsonian Holiday Guide here
Learn more about the ocean from the Smithsonian’s Ocean Portal.
Sign up for our free email newsletter and receive the best stories from Smithsonian.com each week.
1 Comment »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Interesting! I hope that everyone’s Sunday is going great and safe,and I hope that they have a great and safe week,especially on the 21st.