tubeworms


tubeworms

[′tüb‚wərmz] (invertebrate zoology) Marine polychaete worms (particularly many species in the family Serpulidae) which construct permanent calcareous tubes on rocks, seaweeds, dock pilings, and ship bottoms. The individual tubes with hard walls of calcite-aragonite, ranging from 0.04 to 0.4 inch (1 millimeter to 1 centimeter) in diameter and from 0.16 to 4 inches (4 millimeters to 10 centimeters) in length, are firmly cemented to a hard substrate and to each other.