The worms are not alone
I’ve got a little video for you.
The tubifex worms have set up a charming little community within the baby snail tank, and I wanted to capture it on video, so that I could share it with you, and go into more detail about the life of a tubifex worm. As I was taping them, I discovered that they were not alone in the baby snail tank. O wonder of nature! More life to be found in the tank of death!
This video starts with one of several happy clusters of tubifex worms. You’ll notice that they’re part-ways out of the gravel. That’s their tail end. They’re absorbing oxygen with their tails, while digging around below for treats. They duck in and out of the rocks at times, and you’ll see one or two rooting around face-first.
Keep an eye out for white specs scooting across the glass. They’re tiny. They’re fast. They’re copepods!
I’m going to be doing a bit of research this weekend, so expect a full copepod post next week.
Here’s a lovely drawing of some copepods. Ernst Haeckel drew and colored them. I don’t think God colors copepods, not the way Ernst Haeckel did. Most real live copepods are transparent.
Copepods are very important as far as the circle of life on the planet is concerned. They are part of plankton, which in turn becomes part of most of the life in the sea, which then becomes part of you and me, one way or another.
This website says it better than I can:
“They are considered the most plentiful multicellular group on the earth, outnumbering even the insects, which include more species, but fewer individuals! Particularly, the copepods are the dominant forms of the marine plankton and constitute the secondary producers in the marine environments and a fundamental step in the trophodinamics of the oceans.”
Pretty impressive, no? If you’re not into words like trophodinamics (dynamics?), it pretty much means…maybe I said it better. Circle of life and all that jazz.
Some fun facts before I leave you for the weekend:
Copepods host the parasite that grows up to become the Guinea worm. Do you know what the Guinea worm is? If the answer is no, we’ll have to fix that!
Copepods are crustaceans, like shrimp and lobsters.
Those are your two new fun facts. Please do be sure to make use of them this weekend.
Thank you.
copepod, crustaceans, Guinea worm, tubifex, parasite, plankton, circle of life
