Pearson College Marine Science

After a question from Johan about ‘weird, somewhat disgusting, sea snake/fish slithering around the surface’ at night and from Max (Dock worker extraordinaire!) about ‘long skinny creatures’ ranging in size from 6″ to 1′, I thought I better go investigate…

Max also sent the photo above and the two below:

These creatures are what I learned as Nereis brandti but are now called Alitta brandti.  Learn more about these giant pileworms from:

Alitta brandti at Encyclopedia of Life

Nereis (Neanthes) brandti at Invertebrates of the Salish Sea

Alitta brandti at World Polychaete Database

On Sunday 2 June we hung a light off the Pearson College dock which attracted many, many megalopae (Dungeness crab, Metacarcinus magister).  Periodically a worm would also be attracted to the light.

I did pester a few of the worms and they released big clouds of sperm.  The reproductive strategy is called epitoky where the posterior end of the polychaete worm is transformed into a bag of gametes (either sperm or eggs). The epitokes swarm at the surface and then explode to release the gametes. Crazy but cool!

Tags: Alitta brandti, epitokes, megalopae, Metacarcinus magister, Nereis brandti, nightlighting, Pearson College dock

This entry was posted on June 12, 2013 at 1:51 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.