Did you know there are only 234 days left until Christmas? I thought we could start our preparations early this year by learning how to decorate a Christmas tree. And what better way to teach this lesson than to learn about an animal commonly known as the Christmas Tree Worm. Sure their real name is Spirobranchus giantess but that is just too difficult to say so we will stick with their common name. These little worms can be found in tropical oceans throughout the world, which seems funny to me since I think of  a cold, snowy day when you say Christmas.

Time to Decorate

Looking at these colourful worms, it is fairly easy to tell how they received their common name. Each worm has two “crowns”, which look an awful lot like a brightly coloured Christmas tree. Believe it or not, these “trees” are actually highly specialized mouth and respiratory appendages (yes, they do both). So if you are a micro-organism, you have to be careful when you go to put the presents under the tree. Each spiral of the Christmas Tree is composed of feather-like tentacles, which not only capture their micro-organism prey but it also moves it to their mouth.

Lazy or Smart?

You never have to worry about being chased down by a Christmas Tree Worm. These animals are considered to be sedentary (they don’t really move). They will usually bore a hole into a nice piece of coral before excreting a calcareous tube. This hard tube offers shelter and protection to our little holiday loving worm. Now their only purpose in life is to sit and wait for micro-organisms to swim into their feathery Christmas tree rings. And here I thought the Sloth was lazy, but they have nothing on these colourful worms.

Taking Down the Christmas Tree

Remember when I said that the Christmas Tree Worm doesn’t really move? Well, that isn’t exactly true. Sure they don’t pack their moving van and head out to another piece of coral but they will retract their feather-like appendages if they are startled. They have no problems taking down their Christmas tree and putting it into their home deep inside the living coral. If you would like to see this first hand, then I suggest watching the very well done video below:

http://youtu.be/oF4PsSJVjwU

Pretty cool animals, right? Luckily, their population is healthy, so as long as we keep the coral living, we will always have the pleasure of seeing this beautiful sea creatures.