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Some people exact to have eyes in the back of their head . Perhaps just as useful , a newmarine wormdiscovered off the coast of Scotland has eyes in the back of its butt .
The cheeky little worm , described for the first time in the June issue of theEuropean Journal of Taxonomy , is calledAmpharete oculicirrata , the latter part of its name referring to the pair of beady black eyes ( or " oculi " ) on the worm ’s cirri — bantam , tentacle - like blob nose out of the creature ’s bum . ( To be fairish , the worm also has a pair of centre near its back talk , but " Ampharete head - eyes " makes for a slightly less interesting name . ) [ Deep - Sea Creepy Crawlies : Images of Acorn Worms ]
The newly described marine worm Ampharete oculicirrata has a jumble of tentacle-like appendages near its mouth, and a pair of beady black eyes on its bum.
Researchers discovered the worm while collecting arenaceous seafloor samples from the West Shetland Shelf Marine Protected Area just north of Scotland , which is mean to be an untapped hotspot of biodiversity . Within 50 - funny scoops of sand taken from around 400 base ( 120 meters ) below the water ’s control surface , the team regain more than 80 worm specimens . Each one mensurate 0.15 to 0.2 inches ( 4 to 5 millimetre ) long , on average — roughly the width of a No . 2 pencil eraser .
Like other polychaetes ( a social class of segmented marine worm),A. oculicirratais a bottom - feeder , which is well illustrated bythe tangle of intellectual nourishment - snatching tentaclesnear its mouth . As for the hindquarters eyes ? It ’s not uncommon for polychete to host multiple sets of eyes along their wriggly little bodies ( possess a dispersed optical meshwork can help marine worms better detect the shadow of predatory fish ) ; but , according to the bailiwick authors , A. oculicirrata’sposterior peepers are relatively rare among its closest relative .
accord to representativesfrom the Joint Nature Conservation Committee , a U.K. conservation grouping that partially funded the discipline , the find of this odd worm so near to the Scotch mainland is further grounds of the diverse life lurking in the sandy habitats of the West Shetland Shelf . Keep your eyes — posterior or otherwise — on this outer space for future discoveries .
This Ampharete oculicirrata specimen is about 0.15 inches (4 mm) long — and, oh yes, did we mention it has a pair of eyes on its butt?
Originally published onLive Science .
