Red-spotted Horseshoe

Image: Alfiero Brisotto
Protula tubularia

Surely, it's a peacock?

Image: Wolljuergen

It has to be a bird-of-paradise. Hasn't it?

Nope. It's a worm. You can tell it's a worm from the, erm... from the feathers.

Image: Wolljuergen

That's why it's also known as the White-tufted Worm...

Although they aren't always particularly white. They can be orange, too, or almost as red as their red spots.

Video: infocarmeable

Red-spotted Horseshoes are found in temperate waters all over the place, from the Mediterranean, across the Atlantic in North America and even as far afield as New Zealand.

They each live in a little calcerous tube that can reach something like 8 cm (3 in) long. The worm lives there all its life and uses that beautiful, horseshoe-shaped crown of feathery tentacles to catch their tiny crumbs of food.

Image: Manuel Sánchez-Mateos Paniagua

At the slightest, unfamiliar sound or shadow, those feathers will instantly disappear into the tube.

Look, don't touch!