Festive Sea Creatures Provide the Holiday Spirit Year-Round

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Image: NPS/Brett Seymour/Submerged Resources Center

NATIONAL PARK OF AMERICAN SAMOA – Did you know: Christmas Tree Worms are little undersea creatures that are festive year-round! They’re shaped like tiny, colorful Christmas trees and live on coral reefs in tropical environments, like the National Park of American Samoa. 

Two colored crowns protrude from the marine worm’s body. The crowns allow the creature to breathe and to catch food like phytoplankton as it floats past. 

You can’t hang ornaments on those crowns, though. They’ll retract quickly if startled, deep into the burrows they bore into live coral. 

Manuia Le Kirisimasi everyone!

National Park News 

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