Peacock Fan Worm Sabella Pavonina
The gentle feathery-flower-like peacock fan worm has red or purple tentacles and an elongated segmented body. The worm inhabits a tube of fine mud, or sand particles, which are held together with mucus and are best seen underwater.
Conservation status in Norfolk
Not threatened
How to help
The marine environment is under pressure and by supporting campaigns for better protection of marine ecosystems we can help the peacock fan worm and other marine invertebrates.
Sabella Pavonina
Information on the Peacock Fan Worm
How to recognise
When it is feeding the peacock fan worm is like a small feathery flower with a thick straw-like stalk. Depending on the current they may be between 20mm high and 10mm across and 250mm high and 60mm across. The fan worm retracts if it senses danger, a sudden change in water pressure or light level, leaving just the straw-like tube showing. The peacock fan worm has narrow red marks on the feathery fronds of its fan.
Where to see
The best place to find peacock fan worms is underwater. They may be seen in rock pools in protected areas or feeding around the legs of piers and sea defences. They occur in large numbers on shipwrecks but if you were to snorkel down to the shallow wrecks off Cley or Weybourne you might not see them as your arrival would probably make them retract.
When to see
They can be seen all year round.
Did you know?
The fan is a set of appendages growing from the worm's head which it uses to catch food particles from the water which flows past it. The tube is not part of the animal but is built and extended by the worm as it grows.
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