Male stolon (right hand side): one of the independent reproductive units of a branching marine worm, growing at the tip of a branch of the worm’s body. It has sprouted eyes and will go swimming free ...

The rare creatures, which are made up of 60 to 150 different segments, can reproduce sexually or asexually Nicholas Rice is a Senior News Editor, Weekends for PEOPLE Magazine. He began working with ...

Deep sea explorers want you to break out the "jazz hands" for this creature. On Nov. 4, the Schmidt Ocean Institute posted a video of one of its recent finds on Instagram. The nonprofit is dedicated ...

The nonprofit Schmidt Ocean Institute recently shared a video of the hairy ocean inhabitant — which it dubbed a “sassy sparkler” — on Instagram. “To describe this polychaete [a type of segmented ...

Volcanic landscapes look hostile to life, yet some worms are not just surviving in these extremes, they are flourishing. From deep-sea vents that should boil flesh to toxic volcanic soils on land, ...

At the bottom of the ocean, where metal-rich hydrothermal vents exhale poison, a bright yellow worm has mastered an impossible art: turning lethal elements into armor. Meet Paralvinella hessleri, the ...

A bright-yellow worm that lives in deep-sea hydrothermal vents is the first known animal to create orpiment, a brilliant but toxic mineral used by artists from antiquity until the nineteenth century.

A robotic explorer filmed the deep-sea worm as part of Schmidt Ocean Institute expedition of the Chile Margin Kelli Bender is the Pets Editor at PEOPLE. She has been working at PEOPLE since 2013. Her ...