Marine Worms

It is amazing how God provides. He provided a beautiful non-rainy day in January. He provided a tide that goes out so we could see the worm castings. God provided friends to go look for worms with us, He even provided the marine biology program for us to use!
Look at this worm, I am pretty sure it is a Pacific Neopolitin Lugworm. See the little red bumps on the side, those are the worm's gills.

I cannot even begin to tell you the number of times we have been to the beach and seen the little piles of sand with holes in them. Never really paid any attention to what they were. I figured that they were an animal of some sort, it did not cross my mind that the beach literally had millions of worms!

The children dug for the worms and we were able to see the mucus lined burrow that the worm lives in. I think this is the acorn worm, (Saccoglossus kowalewski)

Ruby just could not seem to figure out that it was much better to keep her arms in her sleeves. I admit I did laugh when she fell in the cold wet sand and could not get up. It reminded me of Ralphies kid brother in "A Christmas Story".

We finished our study of Marine Worms by heading home, taking hot showers and we were going to watch an Imax movie about The Deep Ocean. Unfortunately we could not get the VHS to work so we appropriately watched "Dirty Jobs" instead.