With their longest larvae, ribbons can grow up to 180 meters, or the equivalent of two blue whales or 720 gummy worms. It turns out, these bank crawlers also have long icons.
For more than 20 years, Ribbon For-fongrm baserodiscus long (b for short) was “getting to know each other longer” than trying Jon Allen, Biologist at the College of William & Mary. Until, that is, Allen decided to give the B Check.
Biologists suspected that rubton-ribbon worms-like B could have longer life spans, but the previous lab record was three years. BaseOdiscus the Eldest, living up to his name, was healthy for about 30 years and, continues to live. A detailed account of the life story of B is published in a recent paper in the journal zoology.
“Our hope is that the work we’ve done here will show people that members of this phylum of phymm are temporary, ephemeral members of the Marine Realm,” Allen told Gizmoto in an email. “Instead, they are decades-long and often subject to high benthic stress [bottom-dwelling] the environment. More attention should be paid to it! “
The story of B
Allen, a medical student, was admitted in 2005 next to a tank of abandoned invertebrates. For the next 20 years, he accompanied Allen on all his academic pursuits, where he “lived humbly in the description, resting in his cool tank,” according to W & M News.
Once a year, they suddenly appear in one of Allen’s fall classes as an example of what his students are learning.
“BEASEDISCUS is a fan,” Allen told Gizmoto in an email. “He has a lovely red color, smooth skin, and is very flexible and very large. He is a meter tall. Or he can certainly stretch to a great height if he wants to, so there is much to admire about him as a teaching symbol.”
And it was one of Allen’s students, Chloe Gootfork, who asked him how old he was. Purell, now a PHD student at the University of California, Irvine, took the first step to find out by sending a leading expert to study tissue-thin larvae from B, Allen explained.
Confirmed results B are nemean of species baseOdicus punnetti and at least 26 years old. That is a conservative estimate, the paper noted, because B’ was still a large larva and may have been at least several years old at the time of collection. “
Long Live the worm
Usually, very rarely scientists are able to calculate the age of Ribbon worms. In B’s case, Worm and Allen’s long friendship is allowed because of the fiery balance though.
Having B as a reference can be useful for researchers studying similar species, especially what environmental and physiological characteristics are related to age. According to the material, organisms like B contribute to “a growing body of knowledge on what is needed to avoid inescence – or ‘aging.'”
That said, right now, Allen isn’t sure what B’s future holds as a research animal, even though the adult caterpillar showed up every day in Allen’s classroom this fall, too.
“My hope is that he continues to live a long life in his tank,” Allen told Gizmodo.
