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tube worm |
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tube wormAny of numerous species of sedentary, solitary or colonial, marine worms that spend their entire life in a tube made from special secretions or from sand grains glued together. Found worldwide, tube worms range from less than an inch (25 mm) to more than 20 ft (6 m) long. The bottom of the tube is attached to the seafloor; the mouth and tentacles are at the upper, open end. The worm breathes through gills, the tentacles, or the body wall. The tentacles, variously arranged, are used to filter-feed aquatic plants and animals. Tube worms occur in the annelid class Polychaeta and in the phyla Phoronida and Pogonophora. Many, mostly unnamed, forms live in deep-ocean vent communities. How to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit webmaster's page for free fun content. |
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More fantastic still is a large tube worm which manages to grow to more than one meter in length without the benefit of either a mouth or a digestive system. There, biologists found 60-centimeter-long tube worms, 7-cm dams, and other animals that appear to be the same species as those that previously lived at Rose Garden but are much smaller, says Fred Grassle of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N. These bacteria are the bottom of the food chain, and they support tube worms, giant clams and strange crabs in the neighborhood who feed on them," says Edmond Mathez, a curator at New York's American Museum of Natural History. |
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