Page 47 - One Million Things: Animal Life - The Incredible Visual Guide

MARINE FLATWORM
Polyclads (marine flatworms) are
oval-shaped and often brightly-colored,
especially those that live on coral reefs.
Bright colors serve as a warning to
potential predators that the flatworm
tastes bad. Most polyclads are
predators that eat smaller
invertebrates. Rippling the edges
of the body allows
the worm to move

PEACOCK WORM
The peacock worm is a
bristleworm—a type of annelid—
and lives attached to the sea
bottom in a tube it constructs
from mucus and sand grains.
A feathery “crown” of filaments
encircling its mouth traps tiny
food particles that drift past.
If danger threatens, the worm
instantly folds its crown and

BEARDED FIREWORM
EARTHWORM Like many bristleworms, the Each segment
With familiar rounded bodies,
earthworms burrow through soil by
bearded fireworm moves using
changing shape. The front part of the
paddlelike lobes, reinforced with
bristles, which project from its sides.
body elongates, its tiny bristles
gripping the burrow, while the rear
The bearded fireworm’s bristles
part follows. Earthworms are annelids
carry a poison that can cause
carries a pair
and eat soil, digesting the decaying
of lobes with
paralysis if touched. Fireworms live
bristles
on reefs where they feed on corals,
plant material it contains.
anemones, and small crustaceans.

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