WORMS

shadsasaur said:
According to wikipedia, they either do this OR just.. turn their entire body into a giant nard before dying.
The first form is characteristic of Nereidae where the whole worm becomes an epitoke. This form may be accompanied by partial or full degeneracy of digestive organs (causing the animal to die quickly) and enhancement of motor and sensory organs; in particular, whereas in its nonreproductive form the worm is a crawling animal, when it becomes an epitoke the worm develops swimming appendages, such as broad parapodia with paddle-shaped chaetae.
Epitokes swim to the plankton-rich surface region, where the gametes erupt from the body and the larvae hatch. This action is often synchronized with moon cycles, and epitokes swim in swarms.
congratulations, you found the were-nads!

Haha, yeah, they kind of do turn into were-nads! I think we have all met that person who turns into a giant sack of genitals at some point in our lives. The worms only do it once a year though, when the season, tides, and lunar cycle all come together just right. And then they die afterward, thank heavens.

But man, the article makes it sound like there are only two methods of epitoky, when in reality it only just gets crazier. There are worms that grows clusters of epitokes off their backs…

There’s also a worm that just grows an endless chain of them. How many epitokes you want? A THOUSAND?!

And this is my favorite, which I was woefully unable to find pictures of. This one grows an epitoke but WHO has the time to wait for a back end to grow back?! They multitask to get stuff done QUICK