Episode 13

The author discusses the two species of marine worms (polychaete) that went toward designing the monster worm that came up out of the trench in the last few episodes.
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== Cast of Characters ==
* Andreafishy
* The Trench worm
== Ocean facts ==
This episode opens up with an apology from the author, Andreafishy, for delaying today's episode. She explains that real life has taken up her time as well as a family emergency a few days before posting, so the next update will be delayed to the following weekend. So, in the meantime, she has another short info comic for us. She asks that we enjoy.
Ocean Facts!
The monster that appeared in the last episode is based on a polychaete worm! Polychaeta is a class of marine worms. Polychaete in Greek means "many hairs", and this refers to the little bristles that these worms have on their parapoda (legs). It helps them swim around in the open ocean and passively pick up food that drifts by. There are over 13,000 species of polychaete worms in the ocean so it's kinda hard to keep track of them, but the previous monster design is based on a squid worm and a bobbit worm!
Squid worm (Teuthidodrilus samae)
The squid worm is about 3.5 in (9cm) and is named after the weird tentacley appendages emerging from its head. It generally lives in the deep ocean water column and feeds mainly on marine snow (which is a lovely combination of sinking oceanic bio matter including pieces of dead animals, plants, organic materials, and poop)! Try not to think about it too hard.
Bobbit worm (Wikipedia:Eunice_aphroditois|Eunice aphroditois]])
The bobbit worm is also a polychaete, but has a completely opposite way of feeding. It's an ambush predator and is equipped with sharp mandibles that are able to slice prey in half. Also it grows up to 10 feet (3m)!! That's pretty cool, right? Now imagine a squid worm 200 times bigger, and fused with the predatory tendencies of a bobbit worm, and you have my lovely creature!
Anyway, designing monsters is fun, and I thought I'd share some of my research inspirations and how it impacts my designs.
Thank you so much for reading! Make sure to stick around for the next update which will explain some backstory and more! Bye for now!
== References ==