Giant WORM Wednesday! "Bobbit Worm" Eunice spp. BIG Raptorial Polychaete videos!

I have been running late this week with air travel and various museum starfishy things-but I will have something good soon! I promise..

In the meantime-some cool, hi quality videos of Giant Raptorial polychaetes that have been available lately...

catches a fish at 0:39

The Bobbit Dance from Walter Marti on Vimeo.

yeah, not echinoderms-but sometimes its good to be diverse, eh?

This may or may not be the infamous "Bobbit worm" (Eunice sp.) first referenced (to my knowledge) by curators Terry Gosliner and Gary Williams in their book Coral Reef Animals of the Indo-Pacific. Wikipedia has a reference to "bobbit worm" but I'm not sure if this is a specific species or one of several...... (For those who don't know the story of John and Lorraine Bobbit -look here..)

These worms were so named because of their spring-loaded jaws which they used to capture and kill MOVING prey...like FISH.

For the sake of reference (size) these get to be over 2 feet (about 60 cm) LONG and can be about 1-1.5 inches (2.5-2.8 cm) in diameter. They get BIG.

Watch this one catch a fish AND an octopus (near the end)

Bobbit Worm - Dinner time from liquidguru on Vimeo.
others... Bobbit worm in slow motion, high definition stock video footage HD 1080p, Lembeh Strait, Indonesia. ECV0006 from Eric Cheng on Vimeo.

Bobbit worm at night, high definition stock video footage HD 1080p, Lembeh Strait, Indonesia. ECV0005 from Eric Cheng on Vimeo.

this one comes with some an ....overly descriptive intro but has shows some nice behavior..

and some older ones..