Mic – Scientists are pumped about discovering a group of giant shipworms living in a lagoon in the Philippines, but it’s safe to say the internet is collectively grossed out.
The discovery marks the first time scientists have found living examples of this species of giant shipworm, which can grow to be up to five feet long and 2.3 inches in diameter, according to the BBC.
The researchers published their findings in an academic journal and shared video footage of the team removing one of the slimy black worms from its tube-shaped shell.
The giant shipworm is technically a bivalve, like clams and mussels. Its shell grows to form a hard tip over its head, which it uses to burrow down into the mud.
“If they want to grow, they have to open that end of that tube, so somehow dissolve or reabsorb that cap on the bottom, grow, extend the tube down further into the mud, and then they seal it off again,” study co-author Dan Distel explained to the Guardian.
Distel described the moment the team opened up the giant shipworm’s tube-like shell as “quite amazing.” Scientists didn’t even know what color the giant shipworm would be until it slid out.
“That color of the animal is sort of shocking,” Distel said. “Most bivalves are grayish, tan, pink, brown, light beige colors. This thing just has this gunmetal-black color. It is much beefier, more muscular than any other bivalve I had ever seen.”
But not everyone is as delighted as Distel and his team are with the giant shipworm. Headlines described the giant shipworm with phrases like “utterly horrifying” and “toe-curling.”
It seems some people wish the scientists left the terrifying slime worm right where they found it: hidden in its shell at the bottom of a lagoon.
I know i kinda rejoiced five seconds ago about not getting obliterated by an asteroid in my last post, seeing this kinda makes me wish the Earth was knocked out so hard that we get evaporate from all existence in the universe. I hate thinking about slimey slug like things (oddly enough i kinda have this idea with worms to save the world, but thats for another time). Serious what was god or science thinking when they cooked up this things? Maybe its because of science fiction movies mixed with natural horror stories but I think every time i see something like this I automatically think its going to get into my brain somehow. I blame that damn show Animorphs. There was that weird alien race that infected humans by putting slugs into their ears and i distinctly remember the password to get into their cult meeting in the basement of a burger joint was “cheeseburger hold the cheese.” When you walk in you line up and wait for alien slugs to enter your brain so they can control you. Thats what I think of when i see gross creatures like this only this thing is massive. Is that a weird thought? maybe. But this thing was just chilling inside a PVC tube for decades growing into the size of a young adult. Its gross and I wont stand for it.
P.s- It also grosses me out when i walk into a sex shop and see those massive ultra black dildos.
The Ugly Orange 