Purple Snake-thing from Alaska

July 9, 2007
From: Melissa Brook Steward

Hello,
My name is Melissa Steward, and I live in Klawock, Alaska. I was out canoeing one evening right near the shore, and I saw a 14-inch, purple snake-type thing swimming on the surface of the water. As I looked around, I saw there were more of them, all swimming quite fast upon the surface. They were bright purple, had heads just like a snake, long, slender flat bodies, and little tiny hairs or legs lining both sides of their bodies. It looked like it had the texture of a sunfish, all soft and squishy, on the top, but I didn't get to see its underside. Can you tell me what this is? I have looked up every kind of marine worm, eel, slug, nudibranch... that I could find, and none of them looked like what I saw.

Locality: Big Salt Lake Channel, Klawock, Prince of Wales Island , 15-25 feet, Alaska, USA, Pacific, 15 June 2006, rocky shoreline, salt water, fairly clear. Length: 12-14 inches. No photo.

Melissa

melissasteward@gmail.com

Steward, M.B., 2007 (Jul 9) Purple Snake-thing from Alaska. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/20124

Dear Melissa,

What you have described is most certainly polychaete worm. Paging through Lamb & Hanby (2005) the NW Pacific invertebrate Bible, there are two species that can be purple and reach a foot in length. These would be Hololepida mana, the Giant Fleshy Scaleworm, and Nephtys sp., the Goddess Worm.

Hope this helps,
Dave Behrens

Behrens, D.W., 2007 (Jul 9). Comment on Purple Snake-thing from Alaska by Melissa Brook Steward. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/20124

Factsheet

Polychaete Worms (Bristle worms)

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