The solution to Bit-o-Critter round 27

The last BoC was a triple header from previous winner Sarah F. and you had to get 2/3 scientific names correct.  David Gross was the first to do that, correctly identifying the first as a reticulated brittle star Ophionereis reticulata and the third as a flamingo tongue snail Cyphoma gibbosum

 

Nobody got the third one, which was a fireworm, Hermodice carunculata.  That's one of very few BoC's that has never been solved

Solutions to bit-o-critter 9, 10 and 11

Hi all,

I got a bit behind while I was in NY, but am back on deck today and will be back to posting a bit more regularly.  Here's the solutions to the recent bit-o-critters.

Round 9 - Six-gilled shark, Hexanchus griseus
A big ol' slug of a shark, most common in the colder waters of the world.   I picked it because it always seemed odd to me that six and seven gilled sharks manage to have one or two more than everyone else.  Five seems kind of a fundamental number for gills.

Round 10 - Bobbit worm, Eunice aphroditois.  This is a large (like, 5 feet long) and scary polychaete or bristle worm.  It mostly hangs out in the pose shown, waiting for some unfortunate fish to swim past the jaws or brush the antennae, then BAM!  The ant lions of the worm world.  Nicknamed after, you guessed it, Lorena Bobbit (remember her? snip! snip!)

Round 11 - Loriciferan.  OK, that was just mean.  A truly obscure group of microscopic invertebrates that live between sand grains on the bottom of the ocean.  A phylum unto themselves, they were only discovered in 1983.  Not much to them except the lorica or house (the clear baggy bit on the right), some somatic and reproductive cells (pink) and the ring of tentacles around the oral cone (on the left).