Categories
Animal Kingdom Cautionary Tales

Pure grossness

I’m not generally one of those precious overly-squeamish girly girls, but this piece of nasty did make me feel a little faint. Staff at an aquarium in the UK had been puzzled by the mysterious nocturnal savaging of a reef and it’s inhabitants. So the staff decided to lay a trap, and this is the thing that they caught.

It’s a four-foot long polychaete worm that has been named “Barry”. I don’t know about you, but I would have named it something a bit more fitting like “Jabba” or “Freakshow”.  Apparently these worms are capable not only of devouring large pieces of coral and small tropical fish, but also of inflicting permanent numbness on humans. So remember this the next time you’re enjoying a little snorkel in some tropical paradise – you could be the victim of a permanent numbness attack by one of Barry’s free-ranging cousins.

I found this story here.

7 replies on “Pure grossness”