White worm ID

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

It's a Dorvilleidae

@ISpeakForTheSeas YOU TOLD ME IT WAS A BRISTLEWORM! What do they do? Are they still venomous and are they harmful?

Dorvilleid worms are a kind of polychaete (polychaete=bristleworm) - they’re typically harmless/beneficial.

Generally speaking, Dorvilleids are harmless/beneficial. Eunicids, on the other hand, can be either harmless/beneficial, mildly risky (think opportunistic predators eating things like snails, small crustaceans, fish larvae, etc. when starved or when the prey is weak enough), or outright predatory. Some are predators while others are literally herbivores (fun fact, even some of the predators - such as the infamous bobbit worm - will still take algae when given the chance). With that in mind, many (possibly most) Eunicids are also harmless/beneficial, so even if it's a Eunicid, it may not be a bad thing.

But nickm's has a white "collar" and I know there's a specific type of worm with that pattern but can't recall the name.

I’m struggling to see the worm clearly on my phone, but the white collars are found on a few different Eunicid worms (I know a few Eunice spp. and Leodice spp. for sure). These ones tend to be more predatory.

 

[nickm]

Dorvilleid worms are a kind of polychaete (polychaete=bristleworm) - they’re typically harmless/beneficial.


I’m struggling to see the worm clearly on my phone, but the white collars are found on a few different Eunicid worms (I know a few Eunice spp. and Leodice spp. for sure). These ones tend to be more predatory.

I have a lot of them come out at night. I’ll buy a microscope and get a picture of it.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Dorvilleid worms are a kind of polychaete (polychaete=bristleworm) - they’re typically harmless/beneficial.

By that logic, on this forum we should be calling bobbit worms bristleworms... I appreciate that they are all polychaetes and therefore "bristle" worms, but for the sake of clarity, I wouldn't identify a dorvilleid (or a eunicid) as a bristleworm, and would instead reserve that common name for the worms people usually call bristle/fire worms.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

*I am a huge fan of @ISpeakForTheSeas and highly value his knowledge about marine critters. I mean no disrespect in my last post, simply trying to help clarify for others who are following along

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

By that logic, on this forum we should be calling bobbit worms bristleworms... I appreciate that they are all polychaetes and therefore "bristle" worms, but for the sake of clarity, I wouldn't identify a dorvilleid (or a eunicid) as a bristleworm, and would instead reserve that common name for the worms people usually call bristle/fire worms.

Yeah, I try to ID down to a more specific level for that reason. Assuming that @Reefkeepers Archive is referring to my response in the thread below, I couldn’t see the worm well enough to ID it beyond the Eunicid/Dorvilleid bristleworm description:

Bristle worm? Or something else?

I've recently been looking much closer at my reef tank, and as you have seen in my previous threads I've found some pretty interesting stuff, though I've been seeing quite a few of these lately, they don't seem to have the spines of a bristle worm but I could be wrong, any idea on what these...

www.reef2reef.com

(My response from the thread above

Any chance you could get a clear pic of it's head and/or some closer up, full length pics of the worm under white lighting?

As is, I can tell you that it is a bristleworm (Polychaete) of some variety - the bristles are hard to see in the video, but you can see them if you look close enough (in fact, a few are visible at the very end of the video, so if you watch it in the browser here, it'll freeze on a frame where you can see some of the bristles; it's white bristles on white rock though) - and that it has cephalic tentacles (a fancy way of saying it has tentacles on it's head/face). Given the tentacles, my first thought would be a worm from the taxonomic Order Eunicida, from either the Eunicidae or Dorvilleidae Family.

Generally speaking, Dorvilleids are harmless/beneficial. Eunicids, on the other hand, can be either harmless/beneficial, mildly risky (think opportunistic predators eating things like snails, small crustaceans, fish larvae, etc. when starved or when the prey is weak enough), or outright predatory. Some are predators while others are literally herbivores (fun fact, even some of the predators - such as the infamous bobbit worm - will still take algae when given the chance). With that in mind, many (possibly most) Eunicids are also harmless/beneficial, so even if it's a Eunicid, it may not be a bad thing.

TLDR; it's probably harmless, but closer up pics (particularly of the head and tail) under white light may help with an ID.

For anyone who's curious, the article below is a fantastic resource on Polychaetes (the supplementary material that details family by family diet, habitat, and more is especially good IMO, though it is 340 pages long - I haven't gotten through all of it yet):

https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-marine-010814-020007

 

[Reefkeepers Archive]

Yeah, I try to ID down to a more specific level for that reason. Assuming that @Reefkeepers Archive is referring to my response in the thread below, I couldn’t see the worm well enough to ID it beyond the Eunicid/Dorvilleid bristleworm description:

Bristle worm? Or something else?

I've recently been looking much closer at my reef tank, and as you have seen in my previous threads I've found some pretty interesting stuff, though I've been seeing quite a few of these lately, they don't seem to have the spines of a bristle worm but I could be wrong, any idea on what these...

www.reef2reef.com

(My response from the thread above

Sorry for the bad photo, there wasn't enough of them at that point to find one on the glass, though I do find them going in and out of the holes in the lobos skeleton, which kind of freaks me out....



Also like @EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal said, I meant no disrespect in my last post.


Though are they still venomous and will pyramid butterflies eat them?

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Sorry for the bad photo, there wasn't enough of them at that point to find one on the glass, though I do find them going in and out of the holes in the lobos skeleton, which kind of freaks me out....



Also like @EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal said, I meant no disrespect in my last post.


Though are they still venomous and will pyramid butterflies eat them?

Totally fine - no disrespect taken, and I know these things can really tough to photograph well.

Dorvilleids are harmless and (to my knowledge) non-venomous; so they really shouldn’t cause any issues that a regular bristleworm doesn’t. I don’t know for sure what would eat them - I’d imagine that most things that eat other polychaetes would consider eating them too though.

 

[nickm]

Dorvilleid worms are a kind of polychaete (polychaete=bristleworm) - they’re typically harmless/beneficial.


I’m struggling to see the worm clearly on my phone, but the white collars are found on a few different Eunicid worms (I know a few Eunice spp. and Leodice spp. for sure). These ones tend to be more predatory.

I got a couple pictures with my phone. This cheap microscope did t work to well. Two different bristleworms.

 

[nickm]

@ISpeakForTheSeas here are the pictures.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

@ISpeakForTheSeas here are the pictures.

The first one is a dorvilleid

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Yeah, that first one is a Dorvilleid worm. Does that second one have a noticeable head on one end, and - if so - can you get a clear picture of it?

 

[nickm]

Yeah, that first one is a Dorvilleid worm. Does that second one have a noticeable head on one end, and - if so - can you get a clear picture of it?

I had smashed it already. Sorry couldn't get the pic for you. I'll catch another one and get better picture of it.

 

[nickm]

@ISpeakForTheSeas @EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal here is a better pic I took with my macro lens.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

@ISpeakForTheSeas @EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal here is a better pic I took with my macro lens.

I'm only seeing two cephalic tentacles there, but it may still be a Dorvilleid worm - let's see what @EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal says.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

I'm only seeing two cephalic tentacles there, but it may still be a Dorvilleid worm - let's see what @EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal says.

Sorry, I'm not sure...