''Chloeia flava'', also known as the golden fireworm, is a segmented bristleworm belonging to the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Amphinomidae Amphinomidae, also known as the fireworms, bristle worms or sea mice, are a family (biology), family of marine polychaetes, many species of which bear chaetae mineralized with carbonate. The best-known amphinomids are the fireworms, which can ca ...

Description

The golden fireworm has an elongated body. Its size varies between long, and between wide, excluding bristles. Its coloration is red-brown to light brown with sometime a light color band in the middle of the body. The body is made of 37 visible segments, each of them has a distinctive

ocelli A simple eye or ocellus (sometimes called a pigment pit) is a form of eye or an optical arrangement which has a single lens without the sort of elaborate retina that occurs in most vertebrates. These eyes are called "simple" to distinguish the ...

, which is purple or dark color with a white outline and placed in the middle of the upper side. Small gills, white to deep brown, are present on both external sides of the back just before the bristles and on almost all the segments. The body is covered laterally with calcareous spines or

setae In biology, setae (; seta ; ) are any of a number of different bristle- or hair-like structures on living organisms. Animal setae Protostomes Depending partly on their form and function, protostome setae may be called macrotrichia, chaetae ...

, they have bristle aspect which are whitish, fine, sharp and venomous.

Distribution and habitat

''Chloeia flava'' is widely distributed through the

Indo-Pacific The Indo-Pacific is a vast biogeographic region of Earth. In a narrow sense, sometimes known as the Indo-West Pacific or Indo-Pacific Asia, it comprises the tropical waters of the Indian Ocean, the western and central Pacific Ocean, and the ...

area from the east coast of Africa, including the

Red Sea The Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and th ...

, to the Pacific Ocean's islands except

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

and

Polynesia Polynesia ( , ) is a subregion of Oceania, made up of more than 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are called Polynesians. They have many things in ...

. It is found in sandy to silty detrital areas close by the reef.Neville Coleman, ''Marine life of the Maldives'', Atoll Editions, Victoria, Australia,2000,

Biology

This worm is an active carnivore, especially at dawn and dusk. Its diet consists of

coral Corals are colonial marine invertebrates within the subphylum Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact Colony (biology), colonies of many identical individual polyp (zoology), polyps. Coral species include the important Coral ...

polyps,

sponge Sponges or sea sponges are primarily marine invertebrates of the animal phylum Porifera (; meaning 'pore bearer'), a basal clade and a sister taxon of the diploblasts. They are sessile filter feeders that are bound to the seabed, and a ...

sea anemone Sea anemones ( ) are a group of predation, predatory marine invertebrates constituting the order (biology), order Actiniaria. Because of their colourful appearance, they are named after the ''Anemone'', a terrestrial flowering plant. Sea anemone ...

s, hydroids and

tunicate Tunicates are marine invertebrates belonging to the subphylum Tunicata ( ). This grouping is part of the Chordata, a phylum which includes all animals with dorsal nerve cords and notochords (including vertebrates). The subphylum was at one time ...

References

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q2017899 Errantia Annelids of the Indian Ocean Annelids of the Pacific Ocean Annelids described in 1766 Taxa named by Peter Simon Pallas