I have never seen one of these alive before, and most of you probably haven’t, either: a priapulid worm. You’ve seen thousands of cats, which are common as dirt, but here’s something wonderfully unusual.
Definitely uncircumcised.
(Also on Sb)
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Aquarium == no traction. Sad worm.
It’s not a wonder they’re not seen often; if I were named after genitalia, I’d probably go into hiding, myself.
What is he(?) doing?
Squirting sperm in various directions as PJ’s annotation would suggest? (Quite some capacity!)
Or just trying to move himself from here to there?
Or casting about for food?
Or?
Well, yeah, but I had a cat that looked like that.
Not my favorite.
Glen Davidson
Who put the condom on it?
Seriously, though, the worm looks as if it needs mud or sand to move; it inserts the proboscis while narrow, then fattens it up and pulls in, so it would move forward if anchored. Sad priapulid!
Needs more funny captions.
I bet you couldn’t even tape bacon to this thing.
That’s what it gets for ignoring it’s spamfolder.
The penis, the bush.. AND NOTHING ELSE!
I’m entertained that I see a “Date Christian Girls” google ad for meet-christians.com on this page :)
Dirt is much more common than cats.
Well that solves a big mystery.
I’d always wanted to know how priapulids were worn.
Reminds me of a peanut worm, of which I had many in my aquarium. They have very extensible bodies and a creepy little mouth thing that can slide in and out. Kinda like Alien. Very cool!
Priapulids have a long and rich history. They were pretty diverse in the Cambrian.
WTF. I get an ad for a Belgian dating site. I’m in Austria.
Which end is the head? or is the head even on one of the ends?
I disabled AdBlock just so I could see these Christian ads, and nada! I’m very disappointed.
If he’s been a priapulid for more than four hours, he should call a doctor.
@Chakolate:
Just for you.
Oh, dear. I would have thought good Christian girls would use less face paste… er, face paint. I thought at first you had sent me to one of those sites advertising 900 numbers.
Please tell me I’m not the only one who thought of Reed Richards, Patrick “Eel” O’Brian, and/or Ralph Dibny.
So this is what happens when you cross a fingercot with a cigarette butt.
Or is it a condom for a strawman?
Gloop, bloop bloop! Slither thither!
—
(TMI – I had a shower earlier and examined my foreskin; it ain’t skin, it’s tissue with vascular features and well-innervated.
And rather sensitive.
What a misnomer!)
@Chakolate: Based on what I saw of the video, and what I read on wikipedia, the end that is “extending” in the video is the “anterior” portion of the worm, while the frilly end (“flame cells”?) is the “posterior” end (which is some combination of waste elimination and sexual organ, if I’m reading correctly). These worms are really primitive creatures; I encourage you to read the wikipedia article; it was very informative and fascinating (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priapulida).
What an eccentric performance!
What scale are we looking at there?
“McCthulhu” asked “What scale are we looking at there?”
“ranging from 0.5 to 20 centimetres (0.20 to 7.9 inches)” according to cr0sh’s Wikipedia article.
I bet they all claim to be 7.9 inches, though.
For a somewhat distant relative that’s even more evocative:
That’s the fat innkeeper worm, Urechis caupo, a member of the Echiura class (phylum Annelida), commonly known as spoon worms.
These are pretty common in shallow marine mudflats along the California coast, and form part of the diet of sea otters.
Very distant relative – priapulids are actually more closely related to insects and crustaceans, while annelids are sister to molluscs. Just goes to show – we’re all worms in the end!
Can it talk?
ikesolem @ 27,
I searched wikipedia for ‘fat innkeeper worm’ and the third entry that came up was ‘Niles Crane’.
It gave me a giggle.