A soft bag suspended in the water can evoke a small jellyfish. Poeobius meseres is a sea worm, however, whose appearance does not show the segments and bristles that are usually associated with its parents. It lives in open water, between the surface and the bottom.
Its liquid-filled body and gelatinous envelope promote this suspension. Traces of its segmentation still exist, especially in groups of nerves repeated along its belly. Kinship does not disappear; it simply becomes less visible to the naked eye.
The animal collects with a net of mucus organic fragments that flow into the ocean. It thus participates in the transfer of matter from the surface waters to the depths. Its strange silhouette corresponds to this floating life: instead of crawling on a support, this worm settled on the path of a rain of food.
What we know
Polychaete worm; less apparent segmentation, not total absence of segmentation.
To go to the source
References consulted on 3 October 2026. Linked pages may be in another language.
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