Polychaete worm in Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument

April 2019

Strange creatures live in the deep waters of your National Marine Sanctuary System! Check out this polychaete worm that researchers found in Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.

Transcript

The Individual scales, if this is a scale worm then I agree.

It almost looks like there are no scales and we are just looks like we're looking through the Dorsal tissue.

Doesn't look like anyone's ever seen this animal before.

The thing is, you know, it's a polychaete worm. So it's a segment that weren't so there should be you know segment lines,but there's no clearly defined scales which would be structures that arise from the dorsal surface of those satellite limbs that you see.