meet’basodiscus ‘Largest’, a record-setting worm over 27 years old
Ribbon worms can grow to extreme lengths, and one has been named basodiscus The oldest ones are showing how little we know about them – including how long they live
John Allen holds the world’s oldest known ribbon worm record for a class of his students.
Every year, John Allen, associate professor of marine biology at William & Mary, removes anemones and brittle stars from the saltwater tank. He then sifts the soil for his nearly meter long ribbon worm, named basodiscus Largest after its species, to show its invertebrate zoology class.
When people imagine insects, they often imagine everyday earthworms, but ribbon worms swing on a distant evolutionary branch and mostly burrow into the sea floor or rocky shores. Most of the approximately 1,300 species of ribbon worms are only a few millimeters wide and can grow quite long—one species, lineus longissimusCan measure up to 55 metres, or twice the average length of a blue whale. “They’re basically long, very flat, ribbon-shaped worms,” says Allen. “They are really formidable predators in marine systems.”
basodiscus greatest, or b, As it is called for short, it was caught from the wild between 1996 and 1998 and housed in a tank at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It came into Allen’s possession when the building in which it was housed was renovated.
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When Allen showed a B in her class of 2023, graduate student Chloe Goodsell was surprised. She was taking care of the anemones and urchins that shared the B tank and didn’t even know the worm lived there. She started asking Alan questions like how old the worm was. It turned out that neither Allen nor any other scientist knew the answer.
The inquiry prompted Allen and Goodsell to publish a paper Journal of Experimental Zoology Estimate of B’s age: At least, the worm is 27 years old. this is one New record for ribbon worms; The previous record holder was three years old. “B is older than my co-writer,” Allen says, laughing. The worm’s longevity sheds new light on what the life expectancy of ribbon worms is and how little we know about them.
john allen keeps basodiscus Largest for its class.
The upper age limit of these insects is not yet known, Allen says, and B.’s own age may be several decades higher than current estimates of their maximum lifespan. He thinks that B is probably average for his species because he does not give the worms any special care or food on Alan’s behalf (B is probably surviving off the population of peanut worms that co-exist in the tank). Many marine invertebrates can live incredible lifespans, with some deep sea tube worms being up to 300 years old and a clam found off the coast of Iceland being over 500 years old. Ribbon worms are also relatively large and apex predators, as are many long-lived species. “Who’s to say that ribbon worms can’t live to be 100 or 200 or 300 years?” Alan asks.
Goodsell, now a Ph.D. Hain says, “It’s interesting to think about why different organisms are evolving longevity and how they can live so long.” Student at the University of California, Irvine. “There is much to learn from the world’s insects.”
Eric Sanford, a marine ecologist at the University of California, Davis, who was not involved in the study, says age is important baseline information for scientists interested in studying how many offspring worms can produce in their lifetime and how worm populations can affect other animals they prey on.
Meanwhile B is steadily increasing the known lifespan of his species – but how much longer is anyone’s guess. “Every year it’s a little bit of a mystery—will he still be there?” Alan says.
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