SpinyheadPlay freeReef behaviors › Worms
A new tube
A Christmas tree worm larva settles on live coral and builds a limy tube that the coral grows around. Long after the worm is gone, its tube becomes a blenny’s home.
Species involved
Where to see it in the game: Only after worms have died, and only now and then.
Source: Clarke & Tyler 2003, Copeia 2003:241
Spinyhead is a free game you play in your browser: you are a spinyhead blenny, a fish about 3 cm long living in a worm hole on a Caribbean coral head. Feed, fight for a better hole, court, raise eggs and dodge predators, while everything around you behaves the way field biologists have seen it behave. Most behaviors in the game come from published field studies; the rest are borrowed from other reefs or extrapolated, and this page says which. There are 82 on these pages, and more in the game’s field notebook waiting to be found.
More worms
Other reef behaviors to discover
Posing for the cleanersCleaning
An honest approachCleaning
All doneCleaning
A change of colorCleaning
Into the jawsCleaning
A moray at the stationCleaning
A butterflyfish cleanedCleaning
The night shiftCleaning
The fourth eyeFoureye butterflyfish
A young foureyeFoureye butterflyfish
No two alikeFoureye butterflyfish
A rider under the eyeFoureye butterflyfish
Lying lowFoureye butterflyfish
Infected rivalsFoureye butterflyfish
The pair’s greetingCleaning gobies
Tending the nestCleaning gobies
Threat displayCleaning gobies
Seen offCleaning gobies
Mate guardingCleaning gobies
Inspected and ignoredCleaning gobies
A clutch hatchesCleaning gobies
Regular customersCleaning gobies
Small fryCleaning gobies
A single female’s stationCleaning gobies