In 2009, sanitation workers running a camera through a
private sewage system came across a colony of strange, red blobs that throbbed
and shuddered like living things. Video
of the sewer things got pretty huge on Youtube, with all the usual wild
guessing.
So what were these things, exactly? It turns out they were nothing more than
colonies of Tubifex worms. These worms
normally live in sediment at the bottoms of lakes or, as happened here, in
sewers. Since there was no soil for the
worms to burrow into, they were simply coiled around each other, forming the
odd, lumpy balls. When the hot camera
lights got too close, the worms would collectively retract, creating the
illusion of a single large moving being.
Apparently these colonies are fairly well known to sewer workers, who
have given themt he delightful nickname "ass urchins".
Tubifex are pretty interesting animals. They're annelids, a large, successful group
that includes earthworms and leeches.
Tubifex often live in polluted, or low-oxygen sediments-- such as the
aforementioned lake bottoms and sewers.
To get oxygen in such inhospitable environments, they have tons of
hemoglobin in their bodies, which gives them their bright red color. You can learn everything you'd ever want to know about Tubifex worms here.
For this drawing, I added a couple of large "queen
tubifex" heads coming out of the mound like hydra heads. There's no report of the ass urchins
sprouting giant heads, but then again there aren't any reports that say they
DON'T sprout giant heads. Besides, how
could I not include a depiction of a tubifex's adorably doofy face
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