The nuptial dance of the nereids

Invertebrates are awesome. In fact, if there was a "moral to the story" for this blog, that could very well be it. Today, I want to share a tale of some particularly awesome invertebrates.

Their name is Nereis succinea. Nereid worms, for those of you who have not met them before, are wriggly little beasts. They're polychaetes, which means they're worms with myriad fringes down both sides of their bodies. They typically live in marine sediments and eat whatever they can get their jaws on. Those jaws, by the way, are freaking awesome. When a nereid eats, it everts its pharynx - in other words, it turns its throat inside-out. That pharynx can be surprisingly long, and it is armed with pinching jaws made from protein. I've held a nereid in my hand while it tried to bite me before - trust me, that experience was highly unnerving. 

A hopeful Nereis succinea bachelor in my lab.

Nereids also have fascinating reproduction, and that is what brought a researcher all the way from Detroit, Michigan to my lab this summer. Dr. Jeffrey Ram is a professor at Wayne State University whose research covers a broad range of topics - physiology, neuroscience, invasive species, even covid-19. He contacted me a few months ago to ask if I would host him at WHOI. He had conducted experiments on Nereis spawning several years ago in Woods Hole, he said, and now he had a new chemical compound he wanted to try. 

After checking with my lab members, I invited Dr. Ram and his wife/research partner, Michal, to WHOI. For two weeks, they set up equipment in my lab, searched for worms, conducted experiments, and told me all sorts of fascinating things about polychaetes. 

You see, when N. succinea spawns, it does a little dance. The adult worms leave their habitat on the seafloor and swim up to the surface on the new moon. The males swim around rapidly in circles, as you can see in this video. The females emit different pheromones to induce the males to spawn, and it is those pheromones that Dr. Ram wanted to study. What chemicals induce spawning, and what chemicals do not? By using different analogues, he could narrow down the nature of the actual pheromone. In a surprising twist, one of the chemicals he was testing is also used for treating kidney disease in humans! 

It was a pleasure to host Jeff, Michal, and their precious worms over the past few weeks. Long live Nereis succinea!