The Flying Saucer At Sunset

Lenticular clouds (Altocumulus lenticularis) are stationary lens-shaped clouds with a smooth layered appearance that form in the troposphere, usually above mountain ranges. One was spotted in Singapore recently...

Eyes Of 30,000 Honeycombs

With 30,000 individual facets, dragonflies have the most number of facets among insects. Each facet, or ommatidia, creates its own image, and the dragonfly brain has eight pairs of descending visual neurons to compile those thousands of images into one picture...

A Kaleidoscope Of Colours, Shapes And Patterns

Spectacular and innovative in design, the Flower Dome replicates the cool-dry climate of Mediterranean regions like South Africa, California and parts of Spain and Italy. Home to a collection of plants from deserts all over the world, it showcases the adaptations of plants to arid environments...

Lightning Strikes, Not Once, But Many Times

Unlike light, lightning does not travel in a straight line. Instead, it has many branches. These other branches flashed at the same time as the main strike. The branches are actually the step leaders that were connected to the leader that made it to its target...

Are You My Dinner Tonight?

A T-Rex has 24-26 teeth on its upper jaw and 24 more on its lower jaw. Juveniles have small, sharp blade-shaped teeth to cut flesh, whereas adults have huge, blunt, rounded teeth for crushing bones. Is the T-Rex a bone-crushing scavenger?

Bristleworms

9:15 PM  , ,  

Seashores
Singapore

Bristleworms are segmented worms belonging to Phylum Annelida like the more familiar Clitellata (earthworms and leeches). There are about 10,000 species of polychaete worms, making them the largest class of the segmented worms.

North-East Coast, Singapore, January 2013...
 
(Read about "Bristles That Sting")


They are abundant on our shores, but are rarely seen as they burrow in the ground or remain in other hiding places. In coral rubble, giant reef worms that grow to 1m long hide inside crevices. Others about 10cm long crawl about in sandy and muddy areas. Some beautiful ones swim about in the water. Others live in tubes. Countless microscopic ones too small to see live among the sand grains.

North-East Coast, Singapore, January 2014...

"Polychaeta" means "many bristles". These worms have bodies that are divided into segments (metameres). Except for the head and last segment, all the segments are generally similar. 

Each segment has a pair of flattened extensions called parapodia. These appendages are usually branched at the ends and covered with bristles, called setae. Parapodia show a vast diversity of form and function, serving purposes such as locomotion (moving like a centipede), burrowing, gas exchange, protection, attachment, controlling water flow within a tube, or can be reduced or lost altogether. 

More photos are available on Merlion Wayfarer Goes Green's Picasa at :

Sources


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