Pigbutt Worm

Tail end

A handsome pair of pert buttocks. On a list of what you might expect to see through your camera as it descends thousands of feet beneath the waves, a disembodied bum is probably quite low. Maybe even right near the end. The END? Hahaaaa! I made a funny!

The Pigbutt Worm is an annelid worm. Unfortunately it's about the size of a hazelnut, so loving caresses and life-sized Greco-Roman sculpture won't be so impressive. But let's not make an ass of ourselves with unreasonable expectations of what a floating rear-end in the sea is supposed to be like. We must appreciate these buttocks on their own terms.

As we can see, are unable to ignore and will probably remember forever, the middle segments of the Pigbutt's body are greatly inflated. This pushes the other segments aside and creates those circles on the ballooning surface. More importantly, it allows them to float around some 900 to 1,200 metres (3,000 to 4,000 feet) beneath the surface of the sea. They stay at this depth even when the actual sea floor is thousands of metres deeper still.

This fact is part of what makes the Pigbutt Worm so mysterious. Oh, yes! These buttocks are buttocks that require thought, attention and warrant a really close look. Maybe even a prod. Pinch?

Front end, showing mouth

You see, the Pigbutt Worm is in the Chaetopteridae family. This is composed of worms who live in tunnels on the sea floor. They filter their food by placing a mucus net near the top of their tube and using it to capture plankton to eat.

Aside from the inflated bit in the middle (the actual butt), the Pigbutt actually looks like a larval form of these other worms. But it's 5 to 10 times bigger than any other known. So, maybe it's an adult?

But then none of the Pigbutts that have been captured had any sexual organs. So maybe it's not an adult?

But if it's not an adult and is more like a really gigantic Chaetopterid worm, shouldn't they be making their way to the sea floor and not floating thousands of feet above it?

Scientists even put the Pigbutt in a tank with an appropriate substrate at the buttock. Sorry, bottom. But the Pigbutt wasn't interested, they were fine with their floating.

They've also been spotted with a cloud of mucus surrounding their mouth. Probably not in dreadful need of tissue paper, they were more likely filtering out food from the marine snow as it drifts through the depths. It's a strategy that's similar not only to other Chaetopterid worms, but also to our very own Sea Butterfly.

All in all, the Pigbutt Worm seems to be almost as mysterious and unexplained as an actual disembodied rump pleasantly floating and flying about the place.

It could well be that, like the Squidworm, the Pigbutt has discovered an absurd solution to the question of how a worm makes it's life far above ground. Let me congratulate and thank the Pigbutt for their extravagantly weird looking success! Somehow the deep sea appears to be that much more friendly a place.