It snares its prey using a complex feeding apparatus with two sharp mandibles which snap shut like a pair of scissors
The ocean floor is home to many weird and terrifying predators, many of which could discourage anyone from ever setting foot into the sea again.
This creature is Eunice aphroditois - also known as the Bobbit worm, apparently after an underwater photographer decided two decades ago that its hunting methods were similar to the Bobbitt family incident of 1993.
That incident involved Lorena Bobbitt slicing nearly half her husband's member off. E. aphroditois is similar, according to a 2011 paper in Revista de Biologia Tropical, 'because either the widely open jaw pieces resemble scissors, or because the exposed portion resembles an erect penis.'
The nickname is inaccurate - Mrs Bobbitt inflicted the grievous injury on her husband using a knife rather than scissors - but it has stuck nevertheless.
And it is perhaps a close enough comparison to dissuade any man from skinny dipping in warm waters near the sea floor at depths of 30 to 130ft, where the long-living nocturnal worm is generally found.
The creature, which spends its life mostly buried beneath the sand of the sea-floor, sticks just a portion of its body up into the water where it has five antennae to sense its prey, usually smaller worms and fish.
Mammoth: A scientists poses with the 10ft-long E. aphroditois discovered in Japan's Seto Fishing Harbour in 2009.
It snares its prey using a complex feeding apparatus called a pharynx which can turn inside-out, like the fingers of a glove, and has sharp mandibles on the end which snap shut like scissors.
Unlucky creatures are sometimes sliced in two because of the speed and strength of the worm's attacks, and it can dish out nasty bites to any humans who stray too close.
One the prey is caught, the worm shoots back into its burrow to feed. When prey is scarce it also feeds seaweed and other sea plants, and will scavenge for morsels around the surface of its burrow.
Noted for its unusually large body size and length, E. aphroditois is found in warm waters all over the world.
Since the 19th century, marine biologists have recognised it has having one of the longest bodies among polychaetes - a class of segmented, mostly marine worms.
They average a length of about one metre, but specimens measuring as long as three metres have been discovered.
The creature, which spends its life mostly buried beneath the sand of the sea-floor, sticks just a portion of its body up into the water where it has five antennae to sense its prey, usually smaller worms and fish.
It snares its prey using a complex feeding apparatus called a pharynx which can turn inside-out, like the fingers of a glove, and has sharp mandibles on the end which snap shut like scissors.
Unlucky creatures are sometimes sliced in two because of the speed and strength of the worm's attacks, and it can dish out nasty bites to any humans who stray too close.
One the prey is caught, the worm shoots back into its burrow to feed. When prey is scarce it also feeds seaweed and other sea plants, and will scavenge for morsels around the surface of its burrow.
Noted for its unusually large body size and length, E. aphroditois is found in warm waters all over the world.
Since the 19th century, marine biologists have recognised it has having one of the longest bodies among polychaetes - a class of segmented, mostly marine worms.
They average a length of about one metre, but specimens measuring as long as three metres have been discovered.
A report by Hiro'omi Uchida, assistant director of the Kushimoto Marine Park Centre in Japan, describes one such mammoth worm found hiding in one of the floats of a mooring raft in Japan's Seto Fishing Habour in 2009.
'[I]it is uncertain when the individual first entered the mooring raft and fish corral during the 13 years the structure sat in the harbour,' he writes.
'It is also uncertain whether the worm arrived by larval settlement or at a semi-adult stage of development. Nonetheless, the individual surely had been living in its comfortable floating home for a quite a long time.'
At 9ft 10in long, about a pound in weight and with 673 segments, the worm they discovered was one of the largest specimens of E. aphroditois ever found.
That same year, a report in MailOnline Science detailed how a 4ft-long specimen was unearthed in a Newquay, Cornwall aquarium that was attacking coral and prize fish.
Workers at the attraction had been left scratching their heads as to why the coral had been left devastated and - in some cases - cut in half. After staking out the display for several weeks, the last resort was to completely dismantle it, rock by rock.
Matt Slater, the aquarium's curator, said: 'Something was guzzling our reef but we had no idea what, we also found an injured Tang Fish so we laid traps but they got ripped apart in the night.
'That worm must have obliterated the traps. The bait was full of hooks which he must have just digested.'
Staff believe the beast - which they nicknamed Barry - arrived by hitching a ride into the aquarium hiding inside a piece of coral when it was young and grew enormous over a number of years.
Mr Slater added: 'It really does look like something out of a horror movie.
Thanks to the Daily Mail
Kathy Dowsett
www.kirkscubagear.com
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