Karen Osborn discovered several species of "James Bond"-like worms. I'm saying "James Bond"-like because they blind their opponents by using green bombs. Seven species that have never been seen before were discovered in a depth of over 1,800 meters. They are very small as they only grow to a size of 3/4 of an inch, to 4 inches. They use green flash bombs to blinden their opponents. Then when the opponent has been blinded, the worms quickly disappear before the opponent can see again. They all live in the Pacific in depth of 5,900 to 12,000 feet. Although they do all live in different parts of the Pacific so the odds are that there will be more similar species discovered in the close future. Some scientist consider this very interesting as it proves that even “simple” worms can have very sophisticated behavior unlike expected.
I personally find this very interesting as it doesn’t happen very often that we discover organism which have achieved something that took us thousands of years just in the process of evolution. I haven’t heard about many similar cases, especially not ones where worms would evolve to such a level. As mentioned they are usually very simple and their behavior isn’t very sophisticated. This makes it even more of a surprise for me. It is also pretty incredible that such a tiny creature can use this to defeat predators which are much bigger and would easily kill them if they didn’t get blinded.
Jan Marek 7.A
Bibliography:
http://www.sciencecastle.com/sc/index.php/home/james_bond_like_worms_discovered_in_deep_sea
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