Velvet worm
Peripatus heloisae
8.53798, -80.7821
Field Notes
Description:
Velvet worms are segmented creatures with a flattened cylindrical body cross-section and rows of unstructured body appendages known as lobopods (informally: stub feet). The animals grow to between 0.5 and 20 cm (.25 to 8 in), with the average being about 5 cm (2 in), and have between 13 and 43 pairs of legs. Their skin consists of numerous, fine transverse rings and is often inconspicuously colored orange, red or brown, but sometimes also bright green, blue, gold or white, and occasionally patterned with other colors.
Segmenting—outwardly inconspicuous and identifiable only in the regular spacing of the pairs of legs—is visible in the regular arrangement of skin pores, excretion organs and concentrations of nerve cells. The individual body sections are largely unspecialized; even the head develops only a little differently from any abdominal segment. Segmentation is apparently specified by the same gene as traceable in other groups of animals and is activated in each case, during embryonic development, at the rear border of each segment and in the growth zone of the stub feet.
Habitat:
All extant velvet worms are terrestrial and prefer dark environments with high air humidity. They are found particularly in the rainforests of the tropics and temperate zones, where they live among moss cushions and leaf litter, under tree trunks and stones, in rotting wood or in termite tunnels. They also occur in unforested grassland, if there exist sufficient crevices in the soil into which they can withdraw during the day.
Notes:
This is hands-down THE coolest creature I have ever encountered. I think it will take a lot to top it. Several minutes of handling caused the velvet worm to shoot its sticky slime, which is used for defense and for snaring prey. You can see it in the final image.
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