MONSTER OF THE WEEK: THE BOBBITT WORM
by Hazed
Also just in time for Halloween is a real life scary creature, found lurking in the bottom of an aquarium.
Maidenhead Aquatics is a store in the UK that sells fish and the supplies you need to keep them. They had a 200-gallon tank in the store which contained fish, but there was a mystery: the inhabitants kept disappearing.
After the tank had sat in place for twelve years, it developed a bit of a leak, so in order to fix it the staff drained the tank and started to clean it out. That’s when they discovered the cause of the vanishing fish: a 3.5 foot worm, Eunice aphroditois, knows as the Bobbitt worm.
These marine creatures are predatory. They grab fish with their razor sharp teeth, in some cases striking with such speed that they sever their prey in half. The shop’s staff think this worm arrived in the tank when they added rocks about ten years ago.
In the wild they don’t usually grow this long, but with a steady diet of fish in the tank and no competition, this particular specimen had an all-you-can-eat buffet at its disposal.
Now, if you don’t want to see a picture of this scary creature, don’t click this link. Really – don’t!
