Probably a good idea to make something vaguely resembling a pinned post, so here we go.
Hey, I’m Molly, I like yapping about palaeontology and spec evo, and I’ve got a bunch of projects I’m working on across a few different universes (aka my brain can never focus on getting one thing done so it bounces around like a cricket on caffeine)
A not so empty universe: After a world war, a plague, and general societal collapse, humanity has made it to the stars, and realised that they’re not as alone as they had thought
-Funny space thing (name still a WIP): a slice of life thing about a bunch of university students on mars trying to survive their studies and each other
-Chimera: set at around the same time as FST, a new life-bearing world has been discovered. What’s unusual about it is that the life forms appear to originate from other worlds, including earth and the home worlds some of other sophonts
-Pasodau: set in the far future of this universe, a moon of a gas giant has been terraformed to house a species of lizards and 3 species of birds alongside various amphibians, fish, invertebrates and plants
A world without us: set after the extinction of humanity and the onset of a new glacial period, a community of sophont ravens have settled in the rusted hulk of a battleship on the plains of Doggerland. One of them named Graucraa has a great interest in the history of not on his own species, but the disappeared beings that came before them
Feorrlund: in a distant solar system, and old god known as The Architect brings life from Earth to populate a planet it has terraformed to live alongside life from its own home world. This planet is now home to the forgotten life of earth, magic, and far too many sophonts
Appalachi fae: fresh out of university, Dan Baker-Hewig makes the regrettable choice to sign up as a park ranger in a world where magic is very real and the forests are home to monsters, fae, and old gods, whilst also having to survive the other rangers.
Also the setting for a few short story things I’ve written and might post at some point.
So ye, feel free to ask about any of the projects, and hope y’all enjoy.
Do u have any good resources for learning about polychaetes? Gonna do a spec evo where they’re one of the main clades on a seed world and want ideas for funky stuff I can do with them
WOAH THATS SUCH A FUN IDEA (I had a very big spec evo phase this makes me very happy)
Polychaetes on earth already get up to crazy insane things, so there's a lot you can do with them! Unfortunately i dont know any specific resources, but maybe someone can leave something for you in the notes? It also depends on what you're looking for; anatomy, behaviour and ecology might not all be together, and polychaetes are such a diverse group that i doubt theres any resource that covers all of their weirdness.
i would suggest you start with groups within polychaeta!! Not sure if you want all of them when they're so different from eachother. Sedentary filter feeders? Active swimmers and hunters? Burrowers? Ambush predators? Worms living on other organisms? Blobs that kinda just Sit There? Hydrothermal vent specialists without digestive systems?? Polychaetes has them all.
I kind of learned about worms over time by browsing iNaturalist and wikipedia, and googling anything i find interesting lol. Actually you could even browse this blog to get a basic idea for the diversity haha. And feel free to ask me anytime if youre looking for weird worm inspiration >:)
Wikipedia is a good place for general info, but like OP said, it really depends on what type of worm you wanna learn about! The beautiful thing about annelids is how WILDLY diverse they are to fill basically any niche. HOWEVER-
In my opinion! The most important thing to understand, if you want to wrap your head around all the crazy adaptations and niches polychaetes fill: the basic polychaete body plan. Essentially all polychaetes come from the same base body plan, but with modifications (and sometimes losses) to specialize into different niches. The body plan may seem simple enough to just glance at and be like "oh I got it", but I encourage you to stop and think about how each part of the worm could be reshaped and modified to perform different functions.
Adding more anatomy discussion beneath the cut, including a few terms you might come across in your research, because annelid scientists looooove giving stupid names to normal regular things :)
I'm gonna focus on Errantia-body-type worms because it's what I'm most familiar with, but anyone who knows more about Sedentaria, Sipunculida, or any of the other annelid groups, feel free to chime in!
Here is a generalized diagram of your average polychaete in subclass Errantia, although most artists tend to just draw nereid-ish worms for these diagrams:
Two things I wanna emphasize because they're not well represented on this diagram: the prostomium and peristomium. Worms are segmented, right? It turns out that their heads are generally made up of two segments: the peristomium, which connects directly to the body and contains the mouth, and the prostomium, which sits on top of the peristomium and contains sensory organs like the eyes and palps. Tentacular cirri (tentacles/antennae) can be connected to either one, but the prostomium always sits on top of the peristomium. In some worms, the two segments are fused, and in other worms like fanworms the two segments are so wildly modified as to be borderline unrecognizable. But this is something I see a lot of artists get wrong, so I'm calling it out here. (my personal art pet peeve lol!)
Here is another diagram I cropped from a paper on nereid jaw anatomy, which is too niche for the overview I'm trying to give here, but the diagram shows the parts of the head better:
Nereid worms, along with many other kinds of worms, are able to evert their pharynx to extend a feeding appendage like these jaws, or paragnaths (little tooth-like spines on the inside of the pharynx).
Now, there's like a bazillion ways the head and its appendages can be modified! Here's some examples from just the order Eunicida:
(link to paper with caption for this figure that explains all the acronyms)
I was gonna keep rambling about head anatomy but I am short on time so I should move on.
The other big thing that people ignore is their little feets - their parapodia! These are the other major thing that Errantia can have modified for different functions. You saw a generalized diagram in the first figure, but here's a more specific one, once again based on nereid morphology:
Polychaete scientists are, in my opinion, really annoying with coming up with all these wildly specific new vocabulary words to describe the parts of the parapodia. So here are the basics of what you need to know about them. Generally, there is a top half (notopodium) and a bottom half (neuropodium). In many worms, the parapodia are also an organ for respiration, because the thin tissue can easily let oxygen pass through into the bloodstream. In some (but not all) worms, each half is supported by an internal spine called an aciculum. The noto- and neuropodia will also have chaetae, which are basically hairs, that can have many different microscopic shapes like hinges, hooks, fans, spikes, etc. for different purposes. You may also see them called setae in the literature, that's an outdated term. Accordingly, the worm segments that have chaetae on the parapodia will be called "chaetigers" or "setigers" in the literature. Some parapodia will have accessory tentacles called cirri, or more fluffy vascularized appendages called branchiae (basically gills).
The shape of the lobes, chaetae, and other parapodial appendages determines a LOT about how a worm moves. For example, Phyllodocid worms often have these huge dorsal lobes that allow them to swim really well, earning them the name 'paddleworms'. Having well-developed parapodia can make it easier to crawl around, dig, or swim, while having reduced parapodia can make it easier to burrow in different ways. But I won't get into my burrowing mechanics grad school stuff today.
I am out of time, but because I am Insane about worms here is a compilation of some cool shaped parapodia:
BUT BASICALLY TLDR WORM ANATOMY IS COOL AND YOU SHOULD FAMILIARIZE YOURSELF WITH THE BASIC COMPONENTS SO YOU CAN SEE HOW THEY ADAPT INTO DIFFERENT SHAPES TO DO DIFFERENT THINGS
I'm always happy to answer worm questions in my DMs too, although I can't promise I always have the answers :')
Fair. I somehow managed to convince my parents that bringing the female mario costume was "if any of my female friends need a costume" and not "its a dress and it go spinney!" So I have that.
