A Russian fisherman who has become famous for his deep-sea creature finds has just revealed his latest find on social media – a weird “smiling” worm that is unquestionably the creepiest thing you’ll see today.
The marine bristle worm that was discovered by Roman Fedortsov.
Roman Fedortsov shared a video of the worm on Twitter, showing the odd monster in all its creepy glory.
The worm, which appears to reside in the depths of the ocean where it receives little sunlight, appears to be smiling at first glance, with a sequence of dots that resemble the worm’s eyes and nose, as well as an entrance in the shape of a crescent that resembles a mouth.
When the video starts, however, the worm surprisingly turns this “face” inside-out, revealing an entirely new visage that looks like something out of Alien.
Fedortsov added a sound effect to the video he released on Twitter on Nov. 13 to represent how he imagines this worm might sound if it had the power to scream.
The caption on the video reads: “If the creature could scream, it would scream like this.”
According to Live Science, the worm appears to have a sinister grin, but expert Mark Siddall of the Museum of Natural History in New York City believes the “smiling face” isn’t actually there.
Siddall, a curator in the museum’s Division of Invertebrate Zoology, attributes the worm’s “smile” to the camera angle.
He claims the worm is a polychaete, also known as a marine bristle worm. These worms appear to have survived five catastrophic extinctions despite living in the coldest parts of the ocean.
And the marine bristle worm family tree is a complete mystery. The species stretches back 505 million years, and over that time, the oldest marine bristle worms evolved into 10,000 different species.
Bristle worms are distinguished by the little bristles known as chaetae that appear all over their bodies. These bristles allow these creatures to move fast, burrow, tube, crawl, and swim.
A family of marine bristle worms.
New species of marine bristle worms can be discovered during any deep-sea voyage, as was the case with Fedortsov’s discovery.
According to Siddall, this particular worm belongs to the nereid family, although the specific species to which it belongs is unknown.
According to a previous Live Science post, the “head” of this worm is actually a retractable pharynx that unravels and expands with its jaw to grasp and capture food. When that pharynx is coiled into the worm’s body, it resembles a smiling face.
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Although the worm appears to be charming at first, it quickly shows its frightening nature, leaving you scarred for the rest of the day.
