The Atlantic

Under the Sea in a Ragworm's Garden

A leggy marine creature may be a one-of-a-kind underwater planter.
Source: Courtesy of Jim Van Belzen

Looking for a little hideaway beneath the waves? Until you find an octopus’s garden, maybe you can make do with a garden tended by a worm.

, also known as the common ragworm, is a leggy marine critter about four inches long. It spends its one-to-three years of life burrowed below marshy coasts along the northern Atlantic, avoiding the animals that would like to eat it. The ragworm, in turn, feeds on whatever it can reach without leaving home. Sometimes it casts a delicate web of mucus across the opening

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