New Babies – Peanut Worms!

We have some new babies in the lab this week.

Newly hatched.   And a new kind of invertebrate for us to work with: Sipunculan worms.

These little guys were spawned in a dish last week and we are keeping our eyes on them to see how they grow.   What kind of development they have.  How long before they settle.  At this early stage it’s a bit hard to imagine how they are going to grow.

Sipunculid worms are often relegated to the “The Lesser Phyla” in invertebrate text books.    It’s true they are not well-known or well-studied.  But they hold great potential to answer some very interesting questions about developmental processes and how the body plans of different invertebrate larvae evolve.   Dr. Michael Boyle will be joining the CollinLab early in 2012 so we will all be learning more about these funny looking little worms.