Now obviously we all love ragworms (Hediste diversicolor)  with all our hearts. They are long centepide looking marine worms with jaws that are able to give quite a nip to humans. I am surprised they aren’t placed on posters next to whales or seals, to entice people to become interested in marine biology because their cute. But whats better than a ragworm .. ‘nothing’ I hear you say? Actually no there is one thing and one thing only that is better…. a king ragworm (Alitta virens)!! Imagine a normal ragworm, at least double the size (potentially 120cm long), with really big jaw pincers and beautiful iridescent colouration.. its everyones dream creature.

Now in all seriousness and sarcasm aside (not sure if you picked up on the tone above) I genuinely think ragworms, especially king ragworms, are amazing!  This might have come from the fact that ragworms are my favourite choice of bait when I go fishing. But I don’t just like them because they usually work to entice a fish to my line, but because as a child in-between waiting for a fish to bite I would inspect these bizarre, wriggling, ‘fluffy’ worms. It was one of the rare chances to repeatedly get a chance to investigate a species up close, and I was fascinated. They have these amazing jaws that become everted when trying to feed or in my case fend off the curious child. These jaws are incredibly impressive, and at the time was unbelievably strange that a wiggly worm could have such hard structures in their body. Now I know of course that marine invertebrates how a range of cool adaptations, which is why I love studying them so much… I mean the squids and octopuses have beaks!! But these a ferocious predators able to snap up prey, and their jaws are so powerful they can give a painful  bite if you’re not careful.

The reason I chose to draw a king ragworm was firstly because of their gorgeous colouration, normal ragworms are much redder and duller in colour. But also when I first saw a king ragworm, I oculdnt believe a worm could get that big, they can get over 1m long! The idea that this vicious predator was lurking in the sediments waiting to snap up any passing invertebrate was mind-blowing. To a small shrimp a king ragworm must be like the giant worm in star wars that eats the millennium falcon!

Natural History Book containing scientific drawings of ragworms.

Since then I’ve always loved learning about this species, I’ve even brought old natural history books specifically because they have had drawings of them in. Now I know worms are not the coolest of creatures, but you have to admit of all the marine worms king ragworms are just so badass you can’t help but find them even a tiny bit interesting?!

There is probably much more I can say about them, like how they swim, how their segments have parapodia (which makes them look fluffy) which both helps them swim and circulate oxygen. But this might be better explained in a post comparing how they differ to other species so you can truly see how cool they are so I will end the post here.

Hopefully you think ragworms are cooler than before, maybe you might find them gross, boring or something out of a horror film? Let me know what you think @marinemumbles on  twitter or comment on my Instagram.