Vancouver Feather Duster

Vancouver Feather-Duster  (Eudistylia vancouveri)

Feather Duster or Cool Looking Tubeworm??


At first glance you might think these guys are colourful trees from a Dr. Suess book, or could be used to do some light dusting around the house, but they are actually marine tubeworms! They have distinctive maroon/purple and green bands along their radioles (plumes) and a long, light grey tube body whose texture resembles leathery parchment paper. The radiole can grow to 5 cm in diameter, and the tube can grow to 68 cm long. If the tubeworm is disturbed or dried, it will retract its feathery radioles into its tube which pinches closed at the top. It uses these colourful plumes to dust the surrounding water for drifting food particles (plankton) that they sort by size. You can find these creatures from Alaska down to California, usually clinging in mass groups to docks, rocks, pilings, and the underside of floats in the intertidal zone to depths of 30 m. The Feather-duster can be found at in areas like the protected rock crevasses at Race Rocks on Vancouver Island where they do not have too much exposure to the air during low tide.

http://www.centralcoastbiodiversity.org/northern-feather-duster-worm-bull-eudistylia-
vancouveri.html

http://www.racerocks.ca/eudistylia-vancouveri-northern-feather-duster-worm-the-race-rocks-taxonomy/