This species, known as the
bobbit worm (
Eunice aphroditois), is a carnivorous worm that usually makes it home by digging a vertical burrow in the sand between rocks or corals in a tropical reef. The burrow is barely wider than the creature's body, but must be as deep as the worm is long. The bobbit worm finds prey with five long antennae on the top of its "head". These antennae wave in the current, picking up scents of possible prey in the water as they flow by and letting the worm know a meal might be near. Not only does it strike at its prey with sharpened jaws, it injects a toxin, which stuns or kills it. The worm can grow up to ten feet in length and eats mostly crustaceans and mollusks.
