Pearson College Marine Science

As the A block Marine Science second years were busily writing their practice IB exam this afternoon, a feather duster worm (Eudistylia vancouveri) was busily spawning in our seawater table.

The photos below were taken after I moved the tube worm from the plastic container it was in initially. When the worm withdrew it was like a volcano of sperm!  And then the worm slowly re-emerged…

We did have a look at the sperm under a microscope and saw that they were very active little swimmers!

Tags: broadcast spawning, Eudistylia vancouveri, feather duster worm, sperm, tube worm

This entry was posted on March 7, 2013 at 3:38 pm and is filed under Events, Marine organisms. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.