#lineus longissimus

[larval]

Bootlace worm

This is Lineus longissimus, a nemertean known as the bootlace worm. It's one of the longest animals in the world. A specimen caught in Scotland after a storm is thought to have been almost 60 meters long. Although this might be an exceptional case, there's enough evidence that these can reach about 30 meters (the length of a blue whale).

Reference:

https://brunovellutini.com/posts/lineus-longissimus-longest-animal/

Source:

[sbnkalny]

Microchaetus rappi,[2] and 58 metres (190 ft) for the african Giant earthworm, Microchaetus rappi,[2] and 58 metres (190 ft) for the Marine nemertean worm (bootlace worm), Lineus longissimus.[3] various types of power and beauty frazzle your heart like a kettle chip, we love there pizza.

[bestanimal]

Round 1 - Phylum Nemertea

(Sources - 1, 2, 3, 4)

Animals in the Phylum Nemertea, commonly known as “Ribbon Worms” or “Proboscis Worms,” are small and mostly slim with a venomous proboscis that everts just above to mouth to capture prey.

There are about 1,300 known species of nermertean. Most nemerteans are carnivores, feeding on annelids, clams, and crustaceans. Some species are scarvengers. Some species are filter feeders that utilize a sucker at the front and back ends of their bodies to attach to a host. Most nemerteans detect the world through the use of chemoreceptors, but some species have simple eyes that allow them to distinguish light from dark. They move slowly, using cilia to walk on a trail of slime. Some larger species can “slither.” Many are brightly colored and patterned. Most nemerteans are marine, living in either the open ocean or on the sea floor, but some species are freshwater, and some are even terrestrial.

Propaganda under the cut:

Previously, nemerteans were split into two groups by whether they had a “little dagger” on their proboscis or not. (This classification no longer applies as one of the “unarmed” orders was closer related to the “armed” group than the rest of the “unarmed” group. It’s still fun to imagine worms with little daggers tho.)

The Bootlace Worm (Lineus longissimus) (seen in the first image) is one of the longest known animals, with specimens up to 55 m (180 ft) long being reported. This is longer than the Lion’s Mane Jellyfish, the sauropod dinosaurs Argentinosaurus and Patagotitan, and the record-holding longest Blue Whale. Like other nemerteans, the Bootlace Worm can also stretch up to 10 times its resting length. They’re not considered the largest animals though, because they’re only 5 to 10 mm (0.20 to 0.39 in) wide!

As a defense against predators, the Bootlace Worm produces a toxic mucus which contains a strong neurotoxin and smells faintly of “iron or sewage.” The mucus has been shown to kill arthropods, and is being studied for its use as a natural pesticide.

Some larger species can regenerate, breaking into pieces when disturbed, after which the fragments can grow into full individuals!

Some nemerteans have a branched proboscis that comes out as a “mass of sticky spaghetti” that can then be used to pull prey into its mouth. If you love horror movies, this is the animal for you! I’m not easily grossed out, but I genuinely can’t stomach this video, so viewer discretion is advised! (Thankfully, this one didn’t have a “little dagger.”

[vintagewildlife]

Bootlace worm (Lineus longissimus) By: M. A. Wilson From: Éditions Rencontre Cards 1978

[a-book-of-creatures]

Bootlace worm (Lineus longissimus).

From McIntosh, W. C. (1873) A Monograph of the British marine Annelids. Original from Smithsonian Libraries, posted on the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

[uncharismatic-fauna]

Lace Up with the Bootlace Worm

Appropriately named, the bootlace worm (Lineus longissimus) is a species of ribbon worm, which are known for their long, slender bodies. The bootlace worm in particular is often credited with being the longest species in this group, and perhaps one of the longest known animals in the world. Though they're only about 5 to 10 mm (0.20 to 0.39 in) around, most bootlace worms can be anywhere from 10 to 15 m (32 to 49 ft) long. Some reports of individuals as long as 30 to 55 m (98 to 180 ft) have been recorded, but few have been confirmed. L. longissimus is relatively uniform in appearence, with a dark purple or brown body and few distinct facial features.

Like most other ribbon worms, the bootlace worm is a marine species. They're most often found along the coasts of northern Europe, especially washed up on beaches or in tide pools. L. longissimus has a fairly basic anatomy; it has no heart or spine, and a simple digestive system. They feed opportunistically on a variety of other invertebrates, including mussels, clams, annelids, and crustaceans, as well as animal carcasses. When a bootlace worm encounters a potential meal, it expels a special feeding structure called the "proboscis" from a special pouch inside its mouth. The force that propels the probiscis towards its prey also turns it inside out. Once they find their prey, the bootlace worm latches on and injects a neurotoxin that paralyses or kills its target. When L. longissimus itself becomes prey, typically by larger crustaceans or fish, it secretes a toxin-filled mucus from its skin that impairs the predators and allows the worm to escape-- much like another worm-like creature, the hagfish.

Little is known about L. longissimus's reproductive biology. The group it belongs to, ribbon worms, are highly variable and have distinct male and female sexes, or individuals can carry the gonads of both. Sexually reproductive ribbon worms often release eggs and sperm into the water, where they fertilize and become microscopic larvae. Ribbon worms, including the bootlace worm, can also split into segments when disturbed; each segment then has the ability to fully regenerate an entire body. The lifespan of the bootlace worm is also unknown, although it's likely only 1-2 years, like most other ribbon worms.

Conservation status: The bootlace worm has not been evaluated by the IUCN. However, as it is primarily found along coasts and in tide pools, populations are likely stable barring extreme habitat disturbance or pollution.

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Photos

Cédric Audibert

Sion Roberts

João Pedro Silva via iNaturalist

[mukuberry]

oh worm... 🪱

Worms are many different distantly related bilateral animals that typically have a long cylindrical tube-like body, no limbs, and usually no eyes.

Worms vary in size from microscopic to over 1 metre (3.3 ft) in length for marine polychaete worms (bristle worms) 6.7 metres (22 ft) for the African giant earthworm, Microchaetus rappi and 58 metres (190 ft) for the marine nemertean worm (bootlace worm), Lineus longissimus. Various types of worm occupy a small variety of parasitic niches, living inside the bodies of other animals. Free-living worm species do not live on land but instead live in marine or freshwater environments or underground by burrowing.

In biology, "worm" refers to an obsolete taxon, Vermes, used by Carolus Linnaeus and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck for all non-arthropod invertebrate animals, now seen to be paraphyletic. The name stems from the Old English word wyrm. Most animals called "worms" are invertebrates, but the term is also used for the amphibian caecilians and the slowworm Anguis, a legless burrowing lizard. Invertebrate animals commonly called "worms" include annelids, nematodes, flatworms, nemerteans, chaetognaths, priapulids, and insect larvae such as grubs and maggots.

The term "helminth" is sometimes used to refer to parasitic worms. The term is more commonly used in medicine, and usually refers to roundworms and tapeworms.

[o-craven-canto]

Largest prokaryote: Thiomargarita magnifica, which can grow up to 1 cm (!!) in length, though tbh it's basically a micrometer-thick veneer of bacterium spread over a bag of inert water.

Largest unicellular organism with a single cell nucleus: the mushroom-shaped alga Acetabularia, which grows several cm tall.

Largest unicellular organism with multiple cell nuclei: the green alga Caulerpa taxifolia and the slime mold Physarum polycephalum can grow up to 30 cm, though in practice they function as multicellular organisms that lack membranes between a nucleus and another.

Largest animal: by linear size, the tendrils of the lion's mane jellyfish (Cyanea capillata) can reach 36 m long, and a specimen the ribbon worm Lineus longissimus was dubiously described as 55 m long. They are pretty thin, though. By mass, the highest non-controversial estimate for the largest non-fragmentary sauropod dinosaurs is around 80 tons (Argentinosaurus huinculensis), though there are dubious estimates from fragmentary remains pushing above 100 or even 200 tons. The known record for thee heaviest measured blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) is 190 tons.

Largest non-colonial organism: the giant redwood General Sherman (Sequoiadendron giganteum) has been estimated to weigh almost 2000 tons, though the vast majority of that mass is probably dead wood tissue. The Lindsey Creek tree (Sequoia sempervirens) was estimated to weigh 3300 tons when it was felled by a storm in 1905. The tallest redwoods grow to 110-120 m tall, which is probably the physical limit for tree height on Earth.

Largest colonial organism: clonal colonies of trees and fungi can grow quite large indeed. The Pando aspen colony in Utah counts over 40,000 individual trees with ininterconnected roots, for an estimated total of over 6000 tons. A colony of the mushroom Armillaria ostoyae in Oregon covers 9 square km and may weigh over 30,000 tons. A colony of the seagrass Posidonia australis (an aquatic flowering plant, not an alga!) in Australia reportedly covers 200 square km, though I see no estimate of its mass. Apparently there is a supercolony of the ant Linepithema humile stretching between Spain, California, and Japan with "billions" of individual workers (assuming 0.5 mg per ant, that would still mean only a few tons of total mass).

[afactaday]

#aFactADay2023

#1028: worms range from microscopic to several dozen metres in length, with specimens of Lineus longissimus reported at 55m (living up to its name!). L. longissimus is a type of bootlace worm, which generally only grow around 5-10mm long, so it's rare to find them this big, but they're capable of it (and absolutely terrifying!)

to add injury to insult, this worm has toxic mucus that can stun or maybe kill predators in low doses. and they just let these things roam free for me to get digested

[larval]

Vote for Nemertea!

(I also love brachiopods)

Taxonomy Tournament: Spiralia

Lingulida. Brachiopods of this order have a long shell and a fleshy stalk with which it burrows into sand/mud. Includes Lingula, the oldest animal genus with species still alive today

Nemertea. This phylum, known as the ribbon worms, is made up of mostly carnivorous worms with a proboscis

[histsciart]

Worm Wednesday

Giant bootlace worms (Lineus longissimus) usually grow to 5 to 15 meters (15-50 feet), but they are thought to grow up to 50 meters (164 feet), which would make them the longest animal on Earth. They also secrete neurotoxin-filled mucus when disturbed.  

SciArt from A Monograph of the British Marine Annelids, V.1, P.1 (1873) by William Carmichael McIntosh. View more in Biodiversity Heritage Library thanks to Smithsonian Libraries for digitizing.

[haemosexuality]

she ra isn't for transphobes noelle stevenson is literally nonbinary

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For other uses, see Worm (disambiguation).

Worms are many different distantly related animals that typically have a long cylindrical tube-like body, no limbs, and no eyes. Worms vary in size from microscopic to over 1 metre (3.3 ft) in length for marine polychaete worms (bristle worms),[1] 6.7 metres (22 ft) for the African giant earthworm, Microchaetus rappi,[2] and 58 metres (190 ft) for the marine nemertean worm (bootlace worm), Lineus longissimus.[3] Various types of worm occupy a small variety of parasitic niches, living inside the bodies of other animals. Free-living worm species do not live on land, but instead, live in marine or freshwater environments, or underground by burrowing. In biology, "worm" refers to an obsolete taxon, vermes, used by Carolus Linnaeus and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck for all non-arthropod invertebrate animals, now seen to be paraphyletic. The name stems from the Old English word wyrm. Most animals called "worms" are invertebrates, but the term is also used for the amphibian caecilians and the slowworm Anguis, a legless burrowing lizard. Invertebrate animals commonly called "worms" include annelids (earthworms and marine polychaete or bristle worms), nematodes (roundworms), platyhelminthes (flatworms), marine nemertean worms ("bootlace worms"), marine Chaetognatha (arrow worms), priapulid worms, and insect larvae such as grubs and maggots.

Lumbricus terrestris, an earthworm

White tentacles of Eupolymnia crasscornis, a spaghetti worm

Worms may also be called helminths, particularly in medical terminology when referring to parasitic worms, especially the Nematoda (roundworms) and Cestoda (tapeworms) which reside in the intestines of their host. When an animal or human is said to "have worms", it means that it is infested with parasitic worms, typically roundworms or tapeworms. Lungworm is also a common parasitic worm found in various animal species such as fish and cats.

History

Further information: Vermes and Animal § History of classification

Paragordius tricuspidatus, a nematomorphan

Pseudoceros dimidiatus, a flatworm

In taxonomy, "worm" refers to an obsolete grouping, Vermes, used by Carl Linnaeus and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck for all non-arthropod invertebrate animals, now seen to be polyphyletic. In 1758, Linnaeus created the first hierarchical classification in his Systema Naturae.[4] In his original scheme, the animals were one of three kingdoms, divided into the classes of Vermes, Insecta, Pisces, Amphibia, Aves, and Mammalia. Since then the last four have all been subsumed into a single phylum, the Chordata, while his Insecta (which included the crustaceans and arachnids) and Vermes have been renamed or broken up. The process was begun in 1793 by Lamarck, who called the Vermes une espèce de chaos (a sort of chaos)[a] and split the group into three new phyla, worms, echinoderms, and polyps (which contained corals and jellyfish). By 1809, in his Philosophie Zoologique, Lamarck had created 9 phyla apart from vertebrates (where he still had 4 phyla: mammals, birds, reptiles, and fish) and molluscs, namely cirripedes, annelids, crustaceans, arachnids, insects, worms, radiates, polyps, and infusorians.[6] Chordates are remarkably wormlike by ancestry.[7]

Informal grouping

In the 13th century, worms were recognized in Europe as part of the category of reptiles that consisted of a miscellany of egg-laying creatures, including "snakes, various fantastic monsters, lizards, assorted amphibians," as recorded by Vincent of Beauvais in his Mirror of Nature.[8] In everyday language, the term worm is also applied to various other living forms such as larvae, insects, millipedes, centipedes, shipworms (teredo worms), or even some vertebrates (creatures with a backbone) such as blindworms and caecilians. Worms include several groups.

The first of these, Platyhelminthes, includes the flatworms, tapeworms, and flukes. They have a flat, ribbon- or leaf-shaped body with a pair of eyes at the front. Some are parasites.

The second group contains the threadworms, roundworms, and hookworms. This phylum is called Nematoda. Threadworms may be microscopic, such as the vinegar eelworm, or more than 1 metre (3 feet) long. They are found in damp earth, moss, decaying substances, fresh water, or salt water. Some roundworms are also parasites. The Guinea worm, for example, gets under the skin of the feet and legs of people living in tropical countries.

The third group consists of the segmented worms, with bodies divided into segments, or rings. This phylum is called Annelida. Among these are the earthworms and the bristle worms of the sea.

Familiar worms include the earthworms, members of phylum Annelida. Other invertebrate groups may be called worms, especially colloquially. In particular, many unrelated insect larvae are called "worms", such as the railroad worm, woodworm, glowworm, bloodworm, inchworm, mealworm, silkworm, and woolly bear worm.

Worms may also be called helminths, particularly in medical terminology when referring to parasitic worms, especially the Nematoda (roundworms) and Cestoda (tapeworms). Hence "helminthology" is the study of parasitic worms. When a human or an animal, such as a dog or horse, is said to "have worms", it means that it is infested with parasitic worms, typically roundworms or tapeworms. Deworming is a method to kill off the worms that have infected a human or animal by giving anthelmintic drugs.

"Ringworm" is not a worm at all, but a skin fungus.

Society and culture

See also: List of fictional worms and Fictional depictions of worms

Worm Hotel

Wurm, or wyrm was the Old English term for carnivorous reptiles ("serpents"), and mythical dragons. Worm has been used as a pejorative epithet to describe a cowardly, weak or pitiable person. Worms can also be farmed for the production of nutrient-rich vermicompost.

See also

Sea worm, lists various types of marine worms

Worm cast

Worm charming

Notes

The prefix une espèce de is pejorative.[5]

References

"Cornwall – Nature – Superstar Worm". BBC. 7 April 2009.

"Worm Digest - The Mighty Worm". 2 October 2005. Archived from the original on 19 February 2009.

Carwardine, Mark (1995). The Guinness book of animal records. Enfield: Guinness Publishing. p. 232. ISBN 978-0851126586.

Linnaeus, Carl (1758). Systema naturae per regna tria naturae: secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis (in Latin) (10th ed.). Holmiae (Laurentii Salvii). Archived from the original on 10 October 2008. Retrieved 22 September 2008.

"Espèce de". Reverso Dictionnaire. Retrieved 1 March 2018.

Gould, Stephen Jay (2011). The Lying Stones of Marrakech. Harvard University Press. pp. 130–134. ISBN 978-0-674-06167-5.

Brown, Federico D.; Prendergast, Andrew; Swalla, Billie J. (2008). "Man is but a worm: Chordate origins". Genesis. 46 (11): 605–613. doi:10.1002/dvg.20471. PMID 19003926.

Franklin-Brown, Mary (2012). Reading the world: encyclopedic writing in the scholastic age. Chicago London: The University of Chicago Press. p. 223;377. ISBN 9780226260709.

Last edited 6 days ago by Robin S

RELATED ARTICLES

Invertebrate

Animals without a vertebrate column

Nemertea

Phylum of invertebrates, ribbon worms

Vermes

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[sbnkalny]

Metres

[sciencenewsforstudents]

Bootlace worms boast spooky-stretchy bodies. Their secret: They also secrete a family of toxins new to science. These poisons might one day inspire novel ways to control noxious pests, such as cockroaches.

Tests first identified the toxins in the mucus coating one bootlace species. It holds the record as the world’s longest animal, notes Ulf Göransson. At Uppsala University in Sweden, he studies medical products that come from natural sources. This champion marine worm, Lineus longissimus, can stretch up to 50 meters (164 feet). That’s longer than an Olympic-size pool. The worm coats itself in mucus that smells a bit like iron or sewage. This goo holds small toxic proteins that have now been dubbed nemertides. Those poisons also have shown up in 16 other species of bootlace worms.

Göransson and his colleagues shared their discovery March 22, 2018 in Scientific Reports.

These nemertides poison by attacking some of the tiny channels in cell walls. These channels control the flux — flow rate — of sodium moving in and out of a cell. Much vital cell business depends on the right flux through these sodium channels, as they’re called. Among that important business: cell-to-cell communication.

The researchers injected small amounts of one nemertide into invasive green crabs (Carcinus maenas). The toxin permanently paralyzed or killed these animals.

“This study certainly has a lot of novelty to it, since marine worms are a tremendously neglected area of venom research,” says Bryan Grieg Fry. He works at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. There, he explores how animal poisons appear to have evolved.

Unlike earthworms, the 1,300 or so species of bootlace — or ribbon — worms have no segments. Some scientists give these animals their own branch, call Nemertea, on the animal family tree. Bootlace worms have a brain but no lungs. Like many other slender marine creatures, these worms breathe directly through the skin. They predators that dine on crustaceans, mollusks and other worms.

One has to marvel at how they can expand and contract their bodies. A 10-meter [33 foot] L. longissimus “can be held in your hand as a slimy heap,” notes study coauthor Malin Strand. She’s a marine biologist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala. She estimates these worms could live 10 years “or maybe much longer.”

How bootlace worms use their toxins isn’t clear. The stringy creatures aren’t easy to keep in captivity for study, Strand says. She has some worms in her lab that have chosen to eat no more than once in three to four years.

Göransson proposes that their toxic mucus might make a useful defense. He has seen videos with the worms stretched upon the seafloor. “If you’re a crab or a fish, it must be tempting to take a nip,” he says. However, there’s little sign of anything pestering these worms.

He once tried some bare-handed contact with a small lab specimen. He didn’t feel much of anything. He’s been warned, though, about “tingling.” Just in case, Göransson now wears gloves.

[dreambaited]

Worms are many different distantly related bilateral animals that typically have a long cylindrical tube-like body, no limbs, and no eyes (not always).

Lumbricus terrestris, an earthworm

White tentacles of Eupolymnia crasscornis, a spaghetti worm

Worms vary in size from microscopic to over 1 metre (3.3 ft) in length for marine polychaete worms (bristle worms);[1] 6.7 metres (22 ft) for the African giant earthworm, Microchaetus rappi;[2] and 58 metres (190 ft) for the marine nemertean worm (bootlace worm), Lineus longissimus.[3] Various types of worm occupy a small variety of parasitic niches, living inside the bodies of other animals. Free-living worm species do not live on land but instead live in marine or freshwater environments or underground by burrowing.

In biology, "worm" refers to an obsolete taxon, vermes, used by Carolus Linnaeus and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck for all non-arthropod invertebrate animals, now seen to be paraphyletic. The name stems from the Old English word wyrm. Most animals called "worms" are invertebrates, but the term is also used for the amphibian caecilians and the slowworm Anguis, a legless burrowing lizard. Invertebrate animals commonly called "worms" include annelids (earthworms and marine polychaete or bristle worms), nematodes (roundworms), platyhelminthes (flatworms), marine nemertean worms ("bootlace worms"), marine Chaetognatha (arrow worms), priapulid worms, and insect larvae such as grubs and maggots.

Worms may also be called helminths—particularly in medical terminology—when referring to parasitic worms, especially the Nematoda (roundworms) and Cestoda (tapeworms) which reside in the intestines of their host. When an animal or human is said to "have worms", it means that it is infested with parasitic worms, typically roundworms or tapeworms. Lungworm is also a common parasitic worm found in various animal species such as fish and cats.

percy did you copy and paste this from wikipedia

[riddle-me-that]

Send me ♥ for a sexual/naughty text ( idk man )

[Text: WRONG NUMBER]: Fun fact: The world’s longest creature is actually the Lineus Longissimus, which measures at 180 feet of length. [Text: WRONG NUMBER]: ...But you know what else is long?[Text: WRONG NUMBER]: ;-)