A marine worm discovered off the coast of an Italian island has developed enormous eyes that weigh about 20 times more than the rest of its head.
The eyes of the Vanadis night worm are so large that if humans had eyes proportionately that large, they would add an extra 100 kg to our heads.
Scientists have now discovered that their massive eyes are very sensitive to ultraviolet (UV) light and could be used to secretly communicate with each other in the darkness of the ocean.
Their large eyes are also highly developed and function similarly to human eyes. Aside from humans, no other vertebrates, including insects, spiders, octopuses, and squid, have this type of eyes.
“Being able to see enough detail and at a high enough frame rate to be able to identify specific objects is actually quite unusual,” said Michael Bok of Lund University, one of the marine biologists who studied the unique eyes of the worm.
“Their eyes are strangely very sensitive to ultraviolet rays,” adds Bok.
Worms could communicate using light
Researchers suspect that hairworms have evolved to see a new type of bioluminescence – a type of chemical light that animals can produce.
“As far as we know, there is no ultraviolet bioluminescence in nature. It’s all green or blue, so this would be a completely new thing,” Bok said.
Since no other animals use UV bioluminescence, the worms would be able to easily find their way in the deep sea and communicate using their own type of light.
“Very powerful behavioral engine”
Findings from Lund University, the University of Copenhagen and the University of Tuscia also prove how quickly eyes can evolve.
The Vanadis’s closest relative is almost completely blind, and garden worms, which are in the same family as the hairworm, don’t even have eyes – they have receptors that can tell them if it’s light or dark.
This suggests that the hairworm’s eyes evolved very quickly, in evolutionary terms.
“These worms have massively evolved their eye structure for something, so there must be a very powerful behavioral driver for this to happen,” Bok added.
After encountering just one, Mr. Bok didn’t even think it was possible to study these worms in the wild. They are invisible in daylight and are therefore difficult to hunt.
“One day, by chance, I saw this video on YouTube showing thousands of these worms swarming around some divers,” he said.
“That really excited me. There was a place we could go and get them.”
“I panicked when I saw them”
He contacted the divers in the video who had filmed the worms in the Mediterranean near Ponza, an Italian island known for its summer nightlife.
One of the divers, Armando Macali, a biologist from the University of Tuscia, offered to take Mr. Bok and his collaborator Anders Garm from the University of Copenhagen to collect worms.
“He said we would find them every day and we were a little skeptical. We had never seen them in the wild before, apart from one individual. [years before]” said Mr. Bok.
“But sure enough, when we jumped in the water the first night, there were hundreds of them everywhere.”
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He added: “I freaked out at the first one I saw. I grabbed him in a plastic bag and frantically swam him back to the boat because I was so excited that we let’s have one.
“Then I turned around and saw them going into the dive lights, and there [were] there are hundreds of them. »
The team returned each night and collected samples of the distinctive worm.
“I was quite delighted and excited,” Mr Bok added.
“When you see these things, they have these big bulbous beach balls that bounce on the side of their head as they swim. So you know right away that it’s definitely a [bristle worm]nothing else is like it.”
Mr Bok and his colleagues return to Ponza in two weeks to find out exactly how the worms use their “remarkable” eyes.
A marine worm discovered off the coast of an Italian island has developed enormous eyes that weigh about 20 times more than the rest of its head.
The eyes of the Vanadis night worm are so large that if humans had eyes proportionately that large, they would add an extra 100 kg to our heads.
Scientists have now discovered that their massive eyes are very sensitive to ultraviolet (UV) light and could be used to secretly communicate with each other in the darkness of the ocean.
Their large eyes are also highly developed and function similarly to human eyes. Aside from humans, no other vertebrates, including insects, spiders, octopuses, and squid, have this type of eyes.
“Being able to see enough detail and at a high enough frame rate to be able to identify specific objects is actually quite unusual,” said Michael Bok of Lund University, one of the marine biologists who studied the unique eyes of the worm.
“Their eyes are strangely very sensitive to ultraviolet rays,” adds Bok.
Worms could communicate using light
Researchers suspect that hairworms have evolved to see a new type of bioluminescence – a type of chemical light that animals can produce.
“As far as we know, there is no ultraviolet bioluminescence in nature. It’s all green or blue, so this would be a completely new thing,” Bok said.
Since no other animals use UV bioluminescence, the worms would be able to easily find their way in the deep sea and communicate using their own type of light.
“Very powerful behavioral engine”
Findings from Lund University, the University of Copenhagen and the University of Tuscia also prove how quickly eyes can evolve.
The Vanadis’s closest relative is almost completely blind, and garden worms, which are in the same family as the hairworm, don’t even have eyes – they have receptors that can tell them if it’s light or dark.
This suggests that the hairworm’s eyes evolved very quickly, in evolutionary terms.
“These worms have massively evolved their eye structure for something, so there must be a very powerful behavioral driver for this to happen,” Bok added.
After encountering just one, Mr. Bok didn’t even think it was possible to study these worms in the wild. They are invisible in daylight and are therefore difficult to hunt.
“One day, by chance, I saw this video on YouTube showing thousands of these worms swarming around some divers,” he said.
“That really excited me. There was a place we could go and get them.”
“I panicked when I saw them”
He contacted the divers in the video who had filmed the worms in the Mediterranean near Ponza, an Italian island known for its summer nightlife.
One of the divers, Armando Macali, a biologist from the University of Tuscia, offered to take Mr. Bok and his collaborator Anders Garm from the University of Copenhagen to collect worms.
“He said we would find them every day and we were a little skeptical. We had never seen them in the wild before, apart from one individual. [years before]” said Mr. Bok.
“But sure enough, when we jumped in the water the first night, there were hundreds of them everywhere.”
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He added: “I freaked out at the first one I saw. I grabbed him in a plastic bag and frantically swam him back to the boat because I was so excited that we let’s have one.
“Then I turned around and saw them going into the dive lights, and there [were] there are hundreds of them. »
The team returned each night and collected samples of the distinctive worm.
“I was quite delighted and excited,” Mr Bok added.
“When you see these things, they have these big bulbous beach balls that bounce on the side of their head as they swim. So you know right away that it’s definitely a [bristle worm]nothing else is like it.”
Mr Bok and his colleagues return to Ponza in two weeks to find out exactly how the worms use their “remarkable” eyes.