Posted on 08/18/2024 7:33:24 PM PDT by Red Badger
Bearded fireworms have been found crawling around the Gulf Coast, and accidentally touching one can cause pain for hours and leave your skin sensitive for weeks.
Surfers beware: Bearded fireworms, caterpillarlike critters that look like they are straight out of a horror movie are lurking in the sand on Texas beaches.
"Your worst nightmares are washing up right now in the form of bearded fireworms!" the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies said in a post on Facebook on Aug. 14.
The creatures, also known as bristle worms, can be dangerous. If they sting you, it can be painful for hours.
"The white bristles coming off each segment of the worm are hollow filled with neurotoxin and they break off when you touch them," the Facebook post read. "They are found in the Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, and of course the Gulf of Mexico."
The bearded fireworms washed up on logs covered in barnacles, one of the animals that the otherworldly-looking creatures feed on.
While the bearded fireworms may look harmless, people are advised to keep their distance as a small prick can quickly upend a relaxing day at the beach, creating a painful, long-lasting memory. "Your skin can feel sensitive in the sting site for weeks depending on where it stung you."
Is this the first time Bearded fireworms have shown up in this area?
Trust me, I have had much worse nightmares than that.
Don’t know. Nobody lived to state otherwise.
Those are nasty looking. I thought giant centipedes I saw in the Philippines were bad enough.
What is that????................
I don’t know, but I know what it looks like....
I grew up there and hadn’t heard about them.
Priapulida, sometimes referred to as penis worms, is a phylum of unsegmented marine worms. The name of the phylum relates to the Greek god of fertility, because their general shape and their extensible spiny introvert proboscis may resemble the shape of a human penis. Wikipedia
That is what Loreena Bobbit cut off.
America is slowly turning into Australia. Everywhere you turn here there’s some new lethal ecology to watch out for.
LOL!!! The Thing That Couldn’t Die...
I think pretty much every critter in Texas is poisonous.
It lives off of tumeric and lemon juice I think.
Sounds like aquatic fire ants.
Naw… that’s just in the Big Bend area. Where pretty much everything is out to stick, sting, bite, trip, rip, penetrate,starve, dehydrate, whatever… you.
Any relation to the well-known “Bearded Clam”?
well, it prolly fits in one...
Trust me, just north of Dallas isn’t much better. Where I got tagged by a tarantula hawk (very nasty wasp). Now I don’t feel normal stings or bites — been stung and bitten so many times I’ve developed a certain level of immunity. Simply don’t feel most bites and stings. But I did feel that one.
Think even the butterflies there try to “stick, sting, bite, trip, rip, penetrate, starve, dehydrate, whatever… you.”
Yeah, phuck the beach.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.