Photo by ryan Murphy
Ryan Murphy took these images of this scale worm in a commensal relationship with sea star.
This set of images taken by Ryan Murphy shows one of the more delicate of the Polynoidae, or scale worms. Divers often find scale worms on the underside of Sea stars and sea cucumbers at Race Rocks. This has not been positively identified but it could be one of the two of three species in the Genus Hololepida.
The following classification is based on that of the Animal Diversity Web:
Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Annelida
Class Polychaeta
Order Aciculata
Family Polynoidae
Genus Hololepida
There are two possible species :
Species: australis
or Species : veleronis
The Taxonomy files are the result of collaboration between students, faculty, staff and Volunteers of Lester Pearson College— Garry Fletcher,