Intertidal Worm From The Chesapeake Bay

[benjami...@gmail.com]

I took my kids down to Chesapeake Beach to try and find some shark teeth on Friday (surprise rainstorm...) and we ended up grabbing some of the strained, unsearched findings and running back to the car.  When we got home I spread them out on the table and we began searching through them.  Surprise!  Worms!  I hate worms fyi.  But now I want to know what they are as we've found probably 8 of the same (to my eyes) worm as pictured below.  Best I can tell they are a type of polychaete Bristleworm.  Does anyone know what these are exactly or a good reference to look at as Bugguide.net doesn't cover marine worms.  These were found in water between shin and knee deep during high tide digging down a maximum of 4-6 inches in random pulls of a scoop.  They have the way of retracting their heads when touched that was quite unpleasant looking...

Above:

Below:

Different Above:

Thanks for looking!

Benjamin

Timonium, MD

[Jim Brighton]

Hey Ben, 

According to the website www.chesapeakebay.net there has been over 110 species of bristle worm recorded in the Chesapeake Bay. I don't know where to acquire that list, but I will be looking for it so we can ingest the data into MBP. As for now I guess you are going to have to go with bristle worm sp?. Maybe there is an aquatic bristle worm specialist out there...

Jim Brighton

Easton, MD

jimbri...@gmail.com

www.marylandbiodiversity.com

www.facebook.com/MarylandBiodiversity

[Rob Aguilar]

Chances are it's a clam worm (Alitta succinea). They are extremely common in the upper Bay.