1 00:00:01,840 --> 00:00:07,000 Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstye, a production of I Heart Radio, Hey 2 00:00:07,080 --> 00:00:11,719 Speaker 1: brain Stuff Lauren Vogel bomb here. It's a skinny creature, 3 00:00:12,080 --> 00:00:15,040 Speaker 1: not much wider than a number two pencil. Yet it's 4 00:00:15,080 --> 00:00:18,759 Speaker 1: one of the longest animals alive today, sometimes rivaling or 5 00:00:18,840 --> 00:00:22,200 Speaker 1: perhaps surpassing the mighty blue whale in length, which can 6 00:00:22,239 --> 00:00:23,919 Speaker 1: grow to a little more than a hundred feet or 7 00:00:23,960 --> 00:00:28,000 Speaker 1: thirty meters long. It has no heart, no spine, no 8 00:00:28,240 --> 00:00:32,120 Speaker 1: body segments. It lurks in mud, sand, and rocky crevices 9 00:00:32,159 --> 00:00:36,680 Speaker 1: around the North Atlantic. It's mucus is surprisingly toxic, and 10 00:00:36,840 --> 00:00:41,000 Speaker 1: when hunger strikes, it summons a winding branch like appendage 11 00:00:41,000 --> 00:00:46,400 Speaker 1: that gets turned inside out. Its name is Linneus longissimus, 12 00:00:46,520 --> 00:00:50,919 Speaker 1: or the boot lace worm, and someday this marine oddity 13 00:00:51,159 --> 00:00:55,520 Speaker 1: might be enlisted to help farmers protect their crops. But 14 00:00:55,840 --> 00:00:58,320 Speaker 1: let's back up a little. In order to make any 15 00:00:58,360 --> 00:01:00,680 Speaker 1: sense of the bootlace worm, you have to take a 16 00:01:00,680 --> 00:01:03,720 Speaker 1: look at its odd branch on the Great Tree of life. 17 00:01:05,160 --> 00:01:07,520 Speaker 1: The boot lace worm is the largest member of the 18 00:01:07,560 --> 00:01:12,920 Speaker 1: animal phylum Nemerdia, also known as ribbon worms or probiscus worms. 19 00:01:12,959 --> 00:01:16,640 Speaker 1: This group includes about one thousand, two hundred documented species. 20 00:01:17,200 --> 00:01:20,400 Speaker 1: Unlike the more familiar earthworms, which areate our soil and 21 00:01:20,480 --> 00:01:23,320 Speaker 1: keep bait shops in business, bootlace worms do not have 22 00:01:23,520 --> 00:01:27,800 Speaker 1: segmented bodies. The blood of a ribbon worm is held 23 00:01:27,840 --> 00:01:31,319 Speaker 1: in a series of vessels. When the walls of these constrict, 24 00:01:31,520 --> 00:01:34,160 Speaker 1: the blood inside is pushed in one direction or another, 25 00:01:34,400 --> 00:01:38,000 Speaker 1: allowing it to circulate throughout the body. The normal muscle 26 00:01:38,040 --> 00:01:41,800 Speaker 1: contractions associated with swimming and crawling help this process. No 27 00:01:42,000 --> 00:01:46,800 Speaker 1: heart is required to keep the blood flowing. One defining 28 00:01:46,840 --> 00:01:50,320 Speaker 1: trait of the Nomerdia phylum is a tubular feeding structure 29 00:01:50,440 --> 00:01:56,560 Speaker 1: called the probiscus. Usually it's tucked away in a specialized pouch. However, 30 00:01:56,760 --> 00:01:59,720 Speaker 1: when the need arises, a ribbon worm applies pressure to 31 00:01:59,760 --> 00:02:03,400 Speaker 1: the area. The force drives the probiscus tube outside of 32 00:02:03,400 --> 00:02:07,200 Speaker 1: the body by quite literally flipping it inside out. All 33 00:02:07,240 --> 00:02:11,239 Speaker 1: of this can happen in a matter of seconds. Okay, 34 00:02:11,320 --> 00:02:15,560 Speaker 1: but why? Ribbon worms eat a variety of things. Some 35 00:02:15,639 --> 00:02:18,760 Speaker 1: are herbivores, but many eat things like crabs, snails, and 36 00:02:18,800 --> 00:02:23,040 Speaker 1: animal carcasses. Having a quick drop robiscus really helps these 37 00:02:23,120 --> 00:02:28,359 Speaker 1: legless animals catch and manipulate food. Sometimes the probiscus is 38 00:02:28,400 --> 00:02:31,400 Speaker 1: also used as a digging tool, and it can definitely 39 00:02:31,440 --> 00:02:34,240 Speaker 1: freak out predators who try to eat the worms. You 40 00:02:34,360 --> 00:02:37,240 Speaker 1: can't blame other creatures for feeling confused or even a 41 00:02:37,240 --> 00:02:40,560 Speaker 1: bit intimidated by the display. Certain ribbon worms can double 42 00:02:40,639 --> 00:02:45,360 Speaker 1: their body length just by whipping out their probiscus. Like most, 43 00:02:45,400 --> 00:02:48,520 Speaker 1: though not all, ribbon worms, the bootley sworm occurs in 44 00:02:48,600 --> 00:02:53,160 Speaker 1: marine habitats. They're indigenous to the northeastern Atlantic Ocean and 45 00:02:53,200 --> 00:02:57,519 Speaker 1: live around the coastlines of Iceland, Germany, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Ireland, 46 00:02:57,560 --> 00:03:01,640 Speaker 1: Great Britain, and the Baltic Sea. The worms like to 47 00:03:01,720 --> 00:03:05,560 Speaker 1: bundle themselves up underneath large bowlders by the shore. Other 48 00:03:05,600 --> 00:03:08,800 Speaker 1: hangout spots include rock fissures, beds of kelp, and natural 49 00:03:08,800 --> 00:03:12,600 Speaker 1: seaside pools. You also might see them slithering around on 50 00:03:12,680 --> 00:03:18,480 Speaker 1: muddy beach sand further offshore. Bootleace worms frequent sunlit parts 51 00:03:18,520 --> 00:03:22,079 Speaker 1: of the ocean floor, winding their sinuous bodies through beds 52 00:03:22,120 --> 00:03:25,560 Speaker 1: of muck and seashells. Divers sometimes find them adrift in 53 00:03:25,600 --> 00:03:29,520 Speaker 1: the water as well. Bootlea sworms come in shades of 54 00:03:29,520 --> 00:03:33,600 Speaker 1: black and dark brown. Their skin might appear iridescent or striped, 55 00:03:33,840 --> 00:03:36,840 Speaker 1: at least to our fancy human eyes. A ribbon worms 56 00:03:36,880 --> 00:03:40,280 Speaker 1: can't see images like we can. Instead, they detect changes 57 00:03:40,280 --> 00:03:44,880 Speaker 1: in light conditions through primitive sensory eye spots. Though the 58 00:03:44,920 --> 00:03:47,720 Speaker 1: bootley sworm is only a quarter to half an inch wide, 59 00:03:47,760 --> 00:03:50,120 Speaker 1: that's about five to ten millimeters, it's one of the 60 00:03:50,160 --> 00:03:54,320 Speaker 1: longest known animals on the planet, full stop. They're usually 61 00:03:54,400 --> 00:03:57,480 Speaker 1: in the neighborhood of sixteen to thirty two feet long. 62 00:03:57,720 --> 00:04:01,320 Speaker 1: That's five to ten meters. Pretty respectable for a worm, 63 00:04:01,320 --> 00:04:04,440 Speaker 1: but that's just the tip of the iceberg. Specimens measuring 64 00:04:04,520 --> 00:04:07,120 Speaker 1: up to thirty meters long nearly a hundred feet have 65 00:04:07,240 --> 00:04:12,040 Speaker 1: been sighted. If the image of a wriggling worm longer 66 00:04:12,080 --> 00:04:15,360 Speaker 1: than a New York City bus disturbs you, maybe skip ahead. 67 00:04:15,760 --> 00:04:19,440 Speaker 1: Things are about to get even more mind blowing. The 68 00:04:19,480 --> 00:04:23,279 Speaker 1: carcass of a monstrous bootlace worm reportedly washed ashore in 69 00:04:23,320 --> 00:04:27,160 Speaker 1: Scotland during the year eighteen sixty four from end to end. 70 00:04:27,200 --> 00:04:29,600 Speaker 1: It was said to measure for wait for it, more 71 00:04:29,640 --> 00:04:34,800 Speaker 1: than a hundred and eighty feet or fifty five meters long. However, 72 00:04:35,000 --> 00:04:37,400 Speaker 1: claims like this should be taken with a grain of salt. 73 00:04:37,880 --> 00:04:40,880 Speaker 1: The scientific community doesn't have any preserved specimens of a 74 00:04:40,880 --> 00:04:45,239 Speaker 1: bootlace worm measuring anywhere near that size. Also, because ribbon 75 00:04:45,279 --> 00:04:49,080 Speaker 1: worms in general are stretchable, elastic critters with bodies prone 76 00:04:49,120 --> 00:04:51,920 Speaker 1: to distortion, it can be hard to pin down their 77 00:04:52,000 --> 00:04:58,360 Speaker 1: maximum lengths. Anyway, if handling bootlace worms doesn't sound like 78 00:04:58,440 --> 00:05:02,719 Speaker 1: a pleasant experience, you're absolutely right toward off predators and 79 00:05:02,920 --> 00:05:07,200 Speaker 1: grabby people. The invertebrates release huge amounts of thick, foul 80 00:05:07,240 --> 00:05:11,039 Speaker 1: smelling mucus when they feel threatened, and there's more of 81 00:05:11,040 --> 00:05:14,640 Speaker 1: the substance than meets the eye or knows. Naturalists have 82 00:05:14,720 --> 00:05:17,840 Speaker 1: learned that the bootlace worms defensive mucus is loaded with 83 00:05:17,880 --> 00:05:21,560 Speaker 1: peptide toxins. Indeed, when a team examined the stuff in 84 00:05:21,600 --> 00:05:25,320 Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, they discovered an entirely new group of said toxins, 85 00:05:25,480 --> 00:05:29,760 Speaker 1: hitherto unknown to science. The researchers noted that the most 86 00:05:29,800 --> 00:05:32,839 Speaker 1: common of these peptides probably isn't poisonous to human beings 87 00:05:32,920 --> 00:05:36,280 Speaker 1: or other mammals, but crustaceans and cockroaches might want to 88 00:05:36,360 --> 00:05:39,600 Speaker 1: keep their distance. It's been shown to interfere with nerve 89 00:05:39,640 --> 00:05:42,280 Speaker 1: and muscle function in some crabs and roaches to the 90 00:05:42,279 --> 00:05:45,200 Speaker 1: point that it can leave the critters dead or permanently paralyzed, 91 00:05:46,400 --> 00:05:49,960 Speaker 1: so who knows. In the near future, products derived from 92 00:05:50,000 --> 00:05:53,800 Speaker 1: the bootlace worms stinky mucus may keep pest insects from 93 00:05:53,880 --> 00:05:57,599 Speaker 1: ruining farms and cash crops. The Stranger Things Have Happened 94 00:06:00,040 --> 00:06:04,960 Speaker 1: m Today's episode is based on the article bootleace worms 95 00:06:05,000 --> 00:06:07,680 Speaker 1: can grow longer than most whales on house toffworks dot Com. 96 00:06:07,760 --> 00:06:10,440 Speaker 1: Written by Mark Mancini. Brain Stuff is production of I 97 00:06:10,520 --> 00:06:12,800 Speaker 1: Heart Radio and partnership with house toffworks dot Com, and 98 00:06:12,800 --> 00:06:15,800 Speaker 1: it is produced by Tyler Clang. Four more podcasts from 99 00:06:15,800 --> 00:06:18,800 Speaker 1: my heart Radio. Visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, 100 00:06:18,880 --> 00:06:20,720 Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.