Taxonomy is fucked up. You start out at “This is how our animal friends are classified and how they’re related to each other :)” and then you dip one inch below the surface and you get “There’s definitely no such thing as a fish and there might be no such thing as a reptile”
The most accurate illustration I know of what these parasites really look like, and a photo of what a brood sac looks like when it leaves the snail - something that was once assumed to happen just by accident to injured snails, but now we know the sacs routinely wander off as entire false caterpillars :)
Huh, they look like a cluster of roots instead of a worm as I expected :o
They’re related to flatworms (which includes tapeworms) but are unusual in that they branch out from a central point, kind of a colonial worm blob or a many-headed hydra!
Someone got an amazing video where you can see at least four broodsacs pulsating in one snail:
The balloon worm (Poeobius meseres) hardly looks like a worm at all. It lives in the midwater—the vast expanse of open water deep below the surface and far above the seafloor. Most marine polychaete worms—the more elaborate relatives of earthworms and leeches—have a clearly segmented body. Their bodies are divided into many nearly identical, repeated parts. Typically, each of those repeated parts is studded with several stiff bristles. Poeobius, however, has a bag-like body filled with fluid that, together with its thick gelatinous coat, provides buoyancy to help it stay up in the water column effortlessly.
Poeobius is a common and very abundant resident of the midwater of Monterey Bay. It drifts through the water, collecting and eating bits of sinking organic matter in a mucous net. This little worm is actually an important part of cycling nutrients like carbon from the ocean’s surface to its depths. Learn more about these wondrous worms on our website.
here are some weird babies who are supposed to grow up to be powerful guides and companions to those wishing to explore the dark arts or look beyond our mortal plane into places strange and spiritual. they were all hatched a couple months ago from strange abandoned eggs found in a Wendy’s bag at the park. sadly, none of the local spooky edgelords in the market to raise up a spooky beast were impressed with these soft lil’ goofs so they all ended up being handed over to the town familiar rescue.
if anyone wants to foster or even adopt Petunia, Plop, and/or Chip, Chap, and Cheep, please give Eldritch Paws a call today.
