She had a man now: Rico, similar, hermit, they would only see each other once or twice a week on purpose, they appreciated space and Rico was an artist too

On the way to my parents' house Friday, the wife and I heard about these crazy-whale-bone-eating-bacteria-filled-male-harem-having worms from the ocean floor, so I couldn't pass up this opportunity to enlighten people with pictures of bottom-dwelling invertebrates (The press release has the brilliant title "Whale carcass yields bone-devouring worms"). Reminded me of a book I read when I was in middle school that involved man-eating versions of those tube worms that grow near sulfur vents on the ocean floor. Don't ask how the worms were supposed to eat people, but I remember thinking the book was pretty scary; kind of like Aliens, but less plausible.

Much like the giant tubeworms ('riftia'), the newly discovered worms ('Osedax') lack both mouths and stomachs and rely instead on a symbiotic relationship with bacteria for nutrition (the bacteria are housed in the green tissue you see in the picture; the green tissue penetrates like roots into the bones of the long-dead whale). Its the bacteria, not the worms, who actually feed on the marrow of the whales. The males are microscopic and actually reside within the female, at concentrations varying from fifty to a hundred males per female (depending on the size of the female). Those frilly pink tentacles you see above are used by the female to sweep free-floating males inside, where they land on the ovaries and begin the great task of their lives, depositing sperm.