A banded swimming worm whose brittle white bristles break off in skin at the lightest contact.
A flattened segmented worm to about 10 cm, banded in cream, pink and dark brown, with a dense fringe of white bristles down each side and a pair of dark spots on each segment. Several species occur here and they are not readily separated; this entry covers the group. It swims with an undulating motion well off the bottom at night, which is when most divers meet it, often in a torch beam over open sand.
The bristles are hollow, brittle calcareous spines carrying a toxin. They break off in skin on the lightest contact, and because they break rather than pull out they cannot be brushed away — adhesive tape lifts them, tweezers work for the larger ones, and rubbing pushes them in. The result is an intense burning and numbness that lasts hours. It is the commonest injury on a muck night dive and almost always comes from a bare hand steadying against the bottom.
Ratings are per location: 1 means found on most dives that look for it, 5 means a handful of records. Where enough dives have been logged the figure is calculated from them; otherwise it is an editorial estimate, and says so. We publish habitat and destination, not the dive site.
