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Comment by ceejayoz | Hacker News Reader

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ceejayoz

Scarier ones exist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eunice_aphroditois

They're terrifying in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_7ByiYbCYM

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I was not prepared for this part:

> The [worm] name is taken from the John and Lorena Bobbitt case.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_and_Lorena_Bobbitt

The Wikipedia photograph is both spectacular, scary and very alien (to us terrestrial life-forms): https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Eunice_a...

I can see where sci-fi/horror film-makers get their inspiration.

oh my god, that birefringence is beautiful.

I think its iridescence not birefringence, still pretty none the less

These aren't scary to people DIRECTLY, but ISTR that they can be a SERIOUS problem in aquariums.

There was a tale online a while back about an aquarium hobbyist who realized the coral he'd brought into his very fancy tank apparently had a bobbit in it, and how he eventually got it out. You can't just pull it out; apparently, it'll split, and then you have TWO of them.

https://whyy.org/segments/liz-bobbit-worm/

tl;dr: he got it out, but it was SEVEN FEET LONG.

I remember that thread! I briefly flirted with saltwater reef tanks before deciding it was way, way more than my ADHD-addled brain could take. Great summary of the key moments.

There are several things in life that look really cool, but that I also know myself well enough to avoid. Saltwater aquariums are on that list.

> apparently, it'll split, and then you have TWO of them.

This sounds like a myth to me so I tried to confirm / debunk it. It seems that all the online reporting goes back to a story about a specimen found in Woking aquatics[0].

The store manager said that when the worm broke into three pieces, the head piece lived on and the middle piece moved around as well.

I'm not confident that means that the middle piece grew a new head and continued to live.

Can anyone here shed more light on this?

[0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-24523612.amp

edit: btw, the story linked by the parent is great

It's certainly plausible.

https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/local-news/bobbit-worms-spl...

> Marine biologist Dr Nicholas Higgs - who works at Plymouth University's Marine Institute and was a PhD student at the Natural History Museum in London - said: "Many species of bristle worm have the ability to regenerate parts of their body, even the head or tail.

This needs it's own submission.

One of my most hair-raising memories is dissecting marine worms. I remember a tub full of them. Makes me shiver even now even though that was decades ago.

Almost as bad as giant isopods. I'm fairly certain HP Lovecraft saw one and dreamed up the Deep One.

And here you can taste them. :)

https://udn-com.translate.goog/news/story/7270/7205951?_x_tr...

If you like Eunice you'll love its 400 million years old ancestor from Canada, Websteroprion

The latter video (from the Smithsonian Channel) turned me off with its stereotypical "Male Announcer Emphatically Warning You Of Danger" voice. Would love to have the same video narrated by Paul Reubens, Emma Watson, or Barry White.

Ah, graboids.

Is that of the same genus as the Sarlacc?

Yes, Cinematicus genus. ;-)

Truly impressive images, but the foley sounds and music in that video are so idiotic.

Well, another reminder that monsters do in fact exist.

Worth its own HN submission?

All of life “beneath” humanity basically lives in a 24/7 horror movie, as far as I can tell.

Humans only do so part-time.

The fact that most of us don't have to constantly worry of something bigger, stronger and faster than us snatching us at nigh to devour us or our families half alive is something we should be very, very thankful for. Our ancestors may have gone a bit overboard, which is why today there just isn't any predator near human habitation (with very few exceptions) and there's no giant predators at all, we killed them all.

What about the tiny predators of bacteria and virus sorts, and of course genetic aberrations with cancers? Tiny predators are the apex we generally are vulnerable in light of.

Those are more difficult, but we're in the process of killing them off too.

As usual, without much regard to consequences.

Forget predators, our ancestors were afraid of the weather. Just about anything in the world would kill them if they let it.

/me goes off to chase tornadoes

invisibly tiny bacteria were also very likely to kill you, and still often do

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