Wildlife
Giant tube worms grow to over 2 metres long and inhabit the hot waters around hydrothermal vents on the Pacific Ocean bed. Like their cool water relatives, giant tube worms do not have a digestive tract. Their food is manufactured by bacteria that live symbiotically inside each worm's body. In return for their energy producing services, the bacteria are provided with a safe place to live and supplied with oxygen, carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulphide gathered by the worm's 'tentacles'.
Scientific name: Riftia pachyptila
Rank: Species
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Black smokers
Volcanoes in the deep Pacific support creatures that don't need the sun.
Volcanoes in the deep Pacific support creatures that don't need the sun.
Deep surprises
The planet's extremes confound the nature of life on earth.
Pompeii worms have been found to thrive at temperatures of up to 80°C around hydrothermal vents, making them the most heat-tolerant complex animal known to science after the tardigrades (or water bears), which are able to survive temperatures over 150°C. In this sequence, a specialised deep sea submersible allowed the audience a privileged view of the inaccessible deep ocean. Stunning images from this relatively unexplored world told the story of the scientific findings made in recent years that have changed the fundamental rules about the nature of life on Earth. (Courtesy of WHOI.)
The following habitats are found across the Giant tube worm distribution range. Find out more about these environments, what it takes to live there and what else inhabits them.
Discover what these behaviours are and how different plants and animals use them.
Additional data source: Animal Diversity Web
Giant tube worms, Riftia pachyptila, are marine invertebrates in the phylum Annelida (formerly grouped in phylum Pogonophora and Vestimentifera) related to tube worms commonly found in the intertidal and pelagic zones. Riftia pachyptila lives over a mile deep, and up to several miles deep, on the floor of the Pacific Ocean near black smokers, and it can tolerate extremely high hydrogen sulfide levels. These worms can reach a length of 2.4 m (7 ft 10 in) and their tubular bodies have a diameter of 4 cm (1.6 in).
The common name "giant tube worm" is however also applied to the largest living species of shipworm, Kuphus polythalamia, which despite the name "worm" is a bivalve mollusc, not an annelid.
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Egg layer
Sessile
Spawning
Symbiotic