Monday, January 19, 1998
Spaghetti worms utilize tentacles in amazing ways
A Hawaii reader writes via e-mail: "Hope you can
help me. Twice in the last few months, I have seen a strange sea creature,
once while snorkeling and yesterday while investigating tide pools. It
looks like several strands of filament, the color of fishing line, but
larger. The strands, about 12 to 24 inches long, all come from a central
body that is hidden in the coral. The strands wiggle as though they might
be searching for something."
They are - they're searching for food.
These strands you describe so well are the feeding tentacles of marine
creatures aptly named spaghetti worms. Like earthworms, spaghetti worms'
bodies are segmented.
They can grow up to 12 inches long with feeding
tentacles reaching 3 feet long.
Spaghetti worms build elaborate tubes for themselves,
either in sediment or in crevices between rocks.
The worm secretes its own "cement" from
glands on its belly, then lines its tube home with coarse sand and shell
fragments. Little hooks along the sides of the worm grip the walls of the
burrow and securely anchor the body inside.
Once snuggled down, the worm sends out feeding
tentacles which constantly search the ocean floor for just about anything
dead, dying or deposited there.
The moveable tentacles bear tiny hairlike structures
along their surface and are able to curl up on themselves to form a
When a tentacle finds something to eat, it forms such a
groove and beats its tiny hairs, thus moving the food to the mouth.
Sometimes a tentacle lassoes the food and drags it to the mouth, where the
worm's lips wipe the tentacle clean.
IF you come across a spaghetti worm, you can watch
these amazing tentacles in action. Gently touch one, and the worm will
withdraw all its tentacles back into its body. Wait a moment, and they
will gradually creep back out to resume feeding.
Hawaii hosts 11 species of these interesting reef
cleaners; five of these are found nowhere else in the world.
Although most of the spaghetti worm tentacles I've seen
in Hawaii are bluish-white, they also come in pink and purple.
One of the more common species of Hawaii's spaghetti
worms shares its tube home with a tiny crab.
Such sharing of living quarters is common among several
kinds of tube worms since their tubes provide protected, well-ventilated
hideaways. Other guests include other worms, bivalves and crustaceans.
On the southeast coast of the U.S., a giant tube worm
with a body 3 feet long hosts no less than eight other animal types in its
tube. This creature bears the appropriate name of the maitre d' worm.
Ancient Hawaiians called spaghetti worms kauna'oa or
kio and used them as medicine (for what ailment is not clear).
Patients either drank an infusion of cooked tentacles
daily for several weeks or sucked the body fluid from a live worm through
a bamboo tube.