‘This is Eunice aphroditois, also known as the bobbit worm, a mix between the Mongolian death worm, the Graboids from Tremors, the Bugs from Starship Troopers, and a rainbow — but it’s a really dangerous rainbow, like in Mario Kart. And it hunts in pretty much the most nightmarish way imaginable, digging itself into the sea floor, exposing a few inches of its body — which can grow to 10 feet long — and waiting.

Using five antennae, the bobbit worm senses passing prey, snapping down on them with supremely muscled mouth parts, called a pharynx. It does this with such speed and strength that it can split a fish in two. And that, quite frankly, would be a merciful exit. If you survive initially, you get to find out what it’s like to be yanked into the worm’s burrow and into untold nightmares.’ (Wired Science).

Related articles

• Bobbit worm (southofheaven.typepad.com)
• Mysterious terror of the tropical seas: Meet the Bobbit worm (holykaw.alltop.com)
• A fish’s worst nightmare: the bobbit worm (whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com)
• Absurd Creature of the Week: 10-Foot Bobbit Worm Is the Ocean’s Most Disturbing Predator – Wired Science (uglicoyote.wordpress.com)

An Iranian Jew prays in a synagogue in Shiraz.

‘Iran’s president purportedly tweets message to Jews in Iran and abroad… Iran is home to about 25,000 Jews, the largest Jewish population in the Middle East outside Israel.’ (National Geographic)

‘Scientists have discovered a staggering colossus that once spewed fire but now slumbers deep in the Pacific Ocean,… a volcano with a footprint comparable to Olympus Mons on Mars, the largest volcano in the solar system. Covering an area of 120,000 square miles, which makes it about the size of New Mexico or the British Isles, the formation dubbed Tamu Massif is one of the biggest ever found, according to a study led by University of Houston professor William Sager.

Hawaii’s Mauna Loa, the largest active volcano on Earth, is taller than Tamu Massif but has only about 2 percent of its area… Tamu’s summit is roughly 6,500 feet below the ocean’s surface. Most of the formation is thought to be in waters that are nearly 4 miles deep.’  (Crave – CNET).