This bristleworm was 'fished' out by a night fisherman. He had skewered a live bait fish and plonked it down into the water for about 15 minutes afterwhich he decided to check on his lure. What he pulled up did not resemble the bait fish. On closer look, there was a strange worm-like creature enveloping the entire bait fish. The bait fish was about 8 or 9 cm long and the worm was just a little longer than it.
The worm had many many tufts of gold and yellow coloured bristles.
Slowly, the bristleworm or rather 'fireworm' regurgitated the fish which had long stopped moving.
It was later realised that the worm had, during the regurgitation, hooked itself on the hook that was originally on the fish.
Over about 10 minutes, it managed to wriggle the tip of the hook towards its mouth but still had a very obvious problem with the business end of the hook.
Before long, the line was cut and the fireworm was thrown back where it came from. The idea of hook removal was abandoned as the worm would have been impossible to handle and more harm may actually be inflicted on it if a plier was used to remove the hook.
I hope it manages to extricate the hook out under water. ... if not then the hunter becomes the hunted and something else will probably devour it.
Read more about this amazing worm here :
