Sandy Hook's Worms
See a video clip of a leech from a fluke.

Worms are abundant and important in the sea (Just ask any fish!) and fill many niches. Some are free living and move through the sediments or swim, and others are sedentary and construct their own living quarters.

Deposit feeders like the fringed worms (Cirratuluidae) live in the mud or under rocks and use their tentacles to sweep the mud for food (Left). Some like Tharyx manage to thrive in polluted waters and are abundant since they don't have much competition there.

The sand worm (Nereis) is the most common and recognisable of the "errant" polychaete worms. These Annelids are dug for bait at Sandy Hook and can reach 36". They are carnivorous, and fishermen warn you that they can nip your finger. Some swim gracefully at night and mate in the darkness of the New Moon. The Nereids are the sea nymphs of mythology (And the Rutgers women's swim team).

 

Hey kid...Don't eat the bait!
Fish eat sand worms and kids pretend to eat earthworms. They're both Annelids - the segmented worms. (See below where worms try to get their revenge)

Both worms are important in maintaining healthy ecosystems.

 

(Above) The most common worms at the shore are Polychaetes like the sand and blood worms. Their name comes from the many-hairs on their side that they use for breathing and locomotion.

(Left) Plumed worms protect themselves by constructing tough, skin-like tubes that are encrusted with shells and other debris. Note the hard clam with a bevelled drill-hole made by a moon snail. For more on clams and drils, click here.

Sedentary polychaetes construct tubes for protection. The trumpet worm, Pectinaria (Above, left - Dave's favorite, incidentally) glues sand grains together and stays buried in the sand with the small end of its cone exposed for breathing. It filters food particles from the mud and sand with a row of golden bristles.

Sand castle worms(Sabellaria - Above, right) also cement sand together, but live in colonies.

"Worm rock" is often formed where colonies of limey tubed worms live among rocks and shells.

 
Dense colonies of worms and sea lace (Bryozoans) often completely cover the worm tubes and shell they are using as a substrate. (Above and left) Like seashells, they extract calcium from the seawater for their tubes.

 Hard-tube worms like Hydroides (Left) are common on rocks and shells. Some worms can divide and the lower half of the worm bores through the tube and forms its own home.

Parchment worms, Chaetopterus (Left) live in the sand and filter plankton from the water.

Leeches (Piscicolidae) are common on fishes and other creatures, but are poorly studied. Below are close-ups of the suckers of leeches found on the summer fluke.

 

 

 
 

 

 Clam Diggers Itch (Cercarial dermatitis)- is from a misguided parasitic flatworm that lives in birds and snails. When it enters our skin (Thinking it is really entering a waterbird's leg) it dies, but our immune reaction can cause painful bumps like these that may last a week.

Outbreaks like this are unusual and occur in the late summer. They are annoying to clammers who spend a lot of time in the bay water digging, but are not life threatening.


Nematodes (Round worms) are often found buried
in the sand with horseshoe crab eggs.
Note the greenish crab egg in the center.


They are featureless until viewed under the microscope. This one is trying to break through the surface tension of a drop of water.

 

 

Nemertean worm.

The milky ribbon worm (Cerebratulus) lives under rocks and in soft sediments. They can grow to 4-feet long.  Fishermen digging for bait worms sometimes call them "tape" worms, but they break apart too easily to stay on fish hooks.

 
Hard tube worms (Spirorbis) have dextral or right-handed coils
(S. spirillum) or left-handed coils (S. borealis).