{"id":5250,"date":"2012-01-10T17:28:24","date_gmt":"2012-01-11T01:28:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mlmlblog.wordpress.com\/?p=5250"},"modified":"2012-01-10T17:28:24","modified_gmt":"2012-01-11T01:28:24","slug":"invertebrate-spotlight-christmas-tree-worms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/2012\/01\/10\/invertebrate-spotlight-christmas-tree-worms\/","title":{"rendered":"Invertebrate Spotlight: Christmas Tree Worms"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By <a href=\"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/students\/catherine-drake\/\">Catherine Drake<\/a>, Invertebrate Zoology Lab<\/p>\n<p>For those of you vertebrates who still have their holiday decorations up, here is an invertebrate you might enjoy learning about: the Christmas tree worm.\u00a0 These polychaetes, <em>Spirobranchus giganteus<\/em>, are tube-building worms that have two \u201ccrowns\u201d in the shape of Christmas trees, hence their name.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 337px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/8\/8f\/Spirobranchus_giganteus_(assorted_Christmas_tree_worms).jpg\/250px-Spirobranchus_giganteus_(assorted_Christmas_tree_worms).jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Christmas Tree Worms\" src=\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/8\/8f\/Spirobranchus_giganteus_(assorted_Christmas_tree_worms).jpg\/250px-Spirobranchus_giganteus_(assorted_Christmas_tree_worms).jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"337\" height=\"251\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Many Christmas tree worms assembled together.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>These appendages are an extension of their mouth and catch prey that swims by and then transport it by cilia to the worm\u2019s mouth.\u00a0 Additionally, the appendages act as part of the worm\u2019s respiratory system, and are thus commonly referred to as gills.\u00a0 Christmas tree worms are generally found in tropical waters and live within corals in calcareous tubes formed by the worms.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 407px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/innerscapesaquariumsystems.com\/Christmas_Tree_Worm.JPG\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Christmas Tree Worms\" src=\"http:\/\/innerscapesaquariumsystems.com\/Christmas_Tree_Worm.JPG\" alt=\"\" width=\"407\" height=\"305\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The appendages on these polycheates aid in the catching of prey.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align:center\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Catherine Drake, Invertebrate Zoology Lab For those of you vertebrates who still have their holiday decorations up, here is an invertebrate you might enjoy learning about: the Christmas tree worm.\u00a0 These polychaetes, Spirobranchus giganteus, are tube-building worms that have two \u201ccrowns\u201d in the shape of Christmas trees, hence their name. These appendages are an [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":291,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[158],"class_list":["post-5250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-invertebrates"],"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"MLML Student Life","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/291"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5250\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}