A marine biologist first identified an elusive marine worm in 1956, and no one had seen the creature since. That is up until very recently, when a team of scientists accidentally rediscovered the tiny worm photobombing pictures of seahorses.
As reported by CNN Science, undergrad student Ai Takahata was studying the camouflage of pygmy seahorses (Hippocampus bargibanti) at the Molecular Invertebrate Systematics and Ecology Laboratory at the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa, Japan, when she noticed worms in her coral samples.
Takahata shared her findings with Chloé Fourreau, a doctoral student at the laboratory. "When she cut a branch of the coral, she noticed some worms came out of it," Fourreau said. "She gave them to me as she knew I was interested in polychaetes, but prior to looking at the worms, I didn't even know about this species."
The worm, Haplosyllis anthogorgicola, is a species of bristle worm, also known as polychaete. These worms are very small, only measuring up to 0.24 inches. They burrow inside gorgonian coral and are nearly transparent, making them difficult to spot.
Fourreau is the lead study author on a recently published paper on the H. anthogorgicola worms, with Takahata as an additional author along with a team of other researchers.
The rediscovery of these worms is exciting, as every conservation victory supports the functionality of the food chain that humans rely on for survival. Thriving populations of even the smallest creatures also support critical biodiversity for a healthy environment.
Interested in finding more photos of pygmy seahorses (to hopefully gain more information about the worms), Fourreau and her team looked to the iNaturalist website — a place where users can post nature images and biodiversity information.
They found 489 photos of seahorses that also happened to feature the worms.
Karen Osborn, a researcher and curator in the department of invertebrate zoology at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., said, "I love that this paper crowdsources imaging from the public to learn more about where and how these animals occur."
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There is still much to be learned about polychaete biology, but all the collected images have provided a wealth of knowledge to the research team.
Osborn, though not involved in the study, said in an email to CNN, "This paper beautifully shows how [the worms] are just below our noses, but virtually unnoticed."
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