'Violent attacks' attributed to worm named Barry
Picture by Chris Moody, www.zpyder.co.uk
Staff at the Blue Reef Aquarium in Newquay had been experiencing a series of violent attacks on the corals in one of their display tanks for the last few months.After unsuccessfully staking out the tanks for several weeks to find the culprit, they resorted to the last resort of dismantling the tank; midway through the process, the perpetrator was revealed as a four-foot long polychaete worm.
The worm was eventually lured out with fish scraps, biting through a 20-lb fishing line in the process.
According to curator Matt Slater, “Something was guzzling our reef but we had no idea what, we also found an injured Tang Fish so we laid traps but they got ripped apart in the night.”
“That worm must have obliterated the traps. The bait was full of hooks which he must have just digested.”
“It really does look like something out of a horror movie. It's over four feet long with these bizarre-looking jaws. We also discovered that he is covered with thousands of bristles which are capable of inflicting a sting resulting in permanent numbness.”
The worm, nicknamed “Barry” by the staff, has been moved to its own tank.
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Heok Hee Ng: 23.3.2009Views: Read 5,913 times
Comments feed
"Hi team.
Very happy to see that you got the perpetrature that was doing so much damage.
I cannot help but see a massive coincidence with the local Rag Worms that live around our shores here in the UK.
Are theyrelated in any way shape or even form I Wonder.??
I ask as they have ferocious mouths and legs just tike the one pictured inyour Aquaurium, and they have bit me on a few occasions as well."
Date: Monday April 6th, 2009, 2:23 pm
"We bought a great bristleworm trap off ebay that would have been good for catching this invader"
Posted by: Kelly Rendall - 7 months, 2 weeks agoDate: Monday April 6th, 2009, 2:36 pm
"I thought the same thing! this looks exactly like the rag worm that fisherman use for bait on the coast. You can buy them in buckets and can be up to a foot long. But four feet? that thing looks like something from the film Slither!"
Posted by: John Hutchinson - 7 months, 2 weeks agoDate: Monday April 6th, 2009, 10:00 pm
"Having been nipped (once - an that was enough for a lifetime) by one of the small ragworm used as bait for seafishing - I can only imagine what sort of pain you'd get from Barry
I would be intersted to know if it is a 'large' ragworm or closely related.
I bet even the biggest Cod would have to think twice about having a go at this worm"
Date: Wednesday April 8th, 2009, 8:03 am
"HI Matt here, curator at BLue Reef Aquarium Newquay.
Barry is a truly awesome beast! THe photo that is up on this website is of a normal fire worm - barry is much more scary! He is a 5 foot long Eunicid worm of the genus Eunice but we havent yet identified the speices there are lots of different ones! It must have come in on the aquacultured live rock we had imported from Indonesia. Have a look at our website blureefaquarium.co.uk for some better pictures. He is still alive and well and on display in one of our nursery tanks and he is being fed on zoolife reef gel instead of live coral! I tried all sorts of different traps to catch barry but none worked - he even bit through a 20lb breaking strain monofilament fishing line and swallowed a hook ... we didnt see him again in daylight after that, he was clever enough not to come out untill darkness. Some of the staff here assumed he had died but one night when I came in for an environmental alarm call out as I walked past the coral tank there he was as thick as my thumb and spread out over the corals! I tried to grab him (with a glove on) but they are so sensitive he must have heard me coming and rapidly dissapeared back under the reef - large Eunicid worms have been documented having an extremely quick reaction times and can rapidly retreat by muscular contracitons of their segmented body! In the end I dismantled the reef tank coral by coral untill i was down to rock- I removed all the rock and barry was found living under a very large 20 kg piece of ocean rock! A triumphant day.
Barry is related to the large ragworms that you can find on british shores, and looks quite similar except it has 5 large tentacles on the head and 4 not 2 large mandibles (teeth) that could definately give a good pinch!
Matt Slater
Blue Reef Aquarium Newquay
Cornwall
England "
Date: Wednesday April 15th, 2009, 8:43 am
"The site address quoted by Matt Slater had a typo in it. If you want to see the photos of Barry, look here:
http://www.bluereefaquarium....
"
Date: Sunday May 10th, 2009, 1:55 am
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 | Singapore-based ichthyologist Dr Heok Hee Ng is a leading expert on Asian catfishes and has described dozens of fish ranging from catfishes, to nandids and cyprinids. |
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"Hope I don't get one of them in my tank!"
Posted by: Richard Waine - 7 months, 3 weeks agoDate: Monday March 30th, 2009, 1:06 pm