Sea mouse

Sea mouse ( Aphrodita aculeata )

The sea mouse ( Aphrodita aculeata ) is a particularly conspicuous representatives of vielborstigen annelids. It belongs to the shed worms.

In 2007 she was "worm of the Year". Your shimmering in a rainbow of colors bristle dress physicists serves as a model for new fiber optic cable.

Description

The body of the sea mouse is oval and up to 20 cm long ( then 40 segments). The back side and the flanks are densely covered with bristles, the lateral bristles are buntschillernd. The ventral surface is flattened and brown - yellow color.

Dissemination

The sea mouse is found only in the northern hemisphere in the northern Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean, the North Sea and the Belts and the Sound in the transition to the southern Baltic Sea. They normally live in muddy bottoms, subtidal to 1000 m depth.

Etymology

Owes its name to the sea mouse Scandinavian seafarers who were reminded of the shape of the animals to female genitalia. They transferred their colloquial expression for this hairy worms. When Carl Linnaeus them scientifically described in 1758, he continued this tradition into something hiding Exploder form continued and the animals named after Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love.