jakenbake
New Member
Hi, I'm Jake, I'm a certified creeper of this forum for a few years but I gave in and joined.
That's my introduction.
Now, I've gotten quite a few rocks from a certain local store because I wanted the little brittle stars that were hiding in them. After removing the brittle stars I left the rock in a quarantine tank and have been a bit amazed by the size, number and variety of worms that have come out of it. I know for a fact I pulled out four pretty long Oenone fulgida worms, one was around a foot long fully erect (is that the politically correct term? I'm going with it) out of the rock. Anyway, today I noticed this one. The back half of it looks like a smaller version of the O.fulgida, although they were much brighter/lighter orange/yellow and their color was very uniform over the whole body. Another notable feature was their eyes that reflected light. This worm has "legs" (once again, not sure if that's the correct term but I'm going with it) similar to the fulgida worms but the "eyes" or whatever those dark marks on the "face" are very much larger than the fulgida worm eyes. Is this a juvenile and it hasn't grown into its eyes yet? The upper half, assuming those are eyes and not some strange dual worm anuses (ani? Anae? What's the correct plural form of "anus"?) has some dark markings on the back and from a distance looks surprisingly similar to the color of an earthworm (see picture taken from a distant potato). None of the larger O.fulgida had that. Also, all of the O.fulgida secreted a purple colored funk/mucus/toxin shortly after I grabbed them with the tongs. This little one didn't secrete anything. One last notable feature of the O.fulgida I found was their speed. They're incredibly fast to shoot back into the rock when disturbed! This one didn't do that, but it was completely exposed with no part of its body near a hole in a rock to retreat. Does anyone have any ideas? Is it just a juvenile O.fulgida? I'm keeping it in a deli cup for now in case anyone on this forum desperately wants to do some weird stuff with it. I'll flush at midnight on Friday if no one begs me not to do so.
Thanks,
Jake
That's my introduction.
Now, I've gotten quite a few rocks from a certain local store because I wanted the little brittle stars that were hiding in them. After removing the brittle stars I left the rock in a quarantine tank and have been a bit amazed by the size, number and variety of worms that have come out of it. I know for a fact I pulled out four pretty long Oenone fulgida worms, one was around a foot long fully erect (is that the politically correct term? I'm going with it) out of the rock. Anyway, today I noticed this one. The back half of it looks like a smaller version of the O.fulgida, although they were much brighter/lighter orange/yellow and their color was very uniform over the whole body. Another notable feature was their eyes that reflected light. This worm has "legs" (once again, not sure if that's the correct term but I'm going with it) similar to the fulgida worms but the "eyes" or whatever those dark marks on the "face" are very much larger than the fulgida worm eyes. Is this a juvenile and it hasn't grown into its eyes yet? The upper half, assuming those are eyes and not some strange dual worm anuses (ani? Anae? What's the correct plural form of "anus"?) has some dark markings on the back and from a distance looks surprisingly similar to the color of an earthworm (see picture taken from a distant potato). None of the larger O.fulgida had that. Also, all of the O.fulgida secreted a purple colored funk/mucus/toxin shortly after I grabbed them with the tongs. This little one didn't secrete anything. One last notable feature of the O.fulgida I found was their speed. They're incredibly fast to shoot back into the rock when disturbed! This one didn't do that, but it was completely exposed with no part of its body near a hole in a rock to retreat. Does anyone have any ideas? Is it just a juvenile O.fulgida? I'm keeping it in a deli cup for now in case anyone on this forum desperately wants to do some weird stuff with it. I'll flush at midnight on Friday if no one begs me not to do so.
Thanks,
Jake
