October 31, 2004

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    Palolo worm 


    The front end of a palolo worm photographed in Micronesia.


    Samoa Worm Sperm Spawns Annual Fiesta




    Whole families grab homemade nets of mosquito netting or cheesecloth and wade into the sea. Men launch boats to scoop up the worms in deeper water. All around them palolo worms are thrashing in vast numbers, as thick as vermicelli soup. The water is milky with mucous.


    Hardcore palolo connoisseurs grab the wriggling green-and-blue worms and swallow them raw on the spot. Most scoop them up in clumps and dump them into buckets.


    The next day there's a celebration—a kind of Thanksgiving feast, Samoan style. A new daily special shows up on local restaurant menus: palolo worm on toast.


    The first biologists to describe the Samoan palolo scientifically, in the 19th century, made an interesting observation: The swarming worm has no head. What biologists eventually discovered is that the swarming, writhing surface mass is not the actual worm itself, but rather its sperm and egg packets.


     

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