The real-life monster named Ramisyllis kingghidorahi is just a tiny marine worm, but it has a horrifying appearance and is an extremely rare species.
It belongs to a small group of worms known as “branching worms” Ramisyllis. Worldwide, over 20,000 species of worms have been identified, but only two species of branching worms have ever been documented, both of which live inside the tiny tubes of sponges or other hosts.
Portrait of a monster from imagination – (Photo: M.T. Aguado)
This third species is particularly unique. It was discovered inside an undescribed species of Petrosita sponge, found in the shallow waters off Sado Island in Japan.
Like the previous species, one end of the worm branches out into multiple limbs resembling a bizarre plant. The name Ramisyllis kingghidorahi given by scientists is derived from that very shape.
The sponge that housed the real-life King Ghidorahi monster – (Photo: M.T. Aguado).
While Ramisyllis is the generic name for branching worms, kingghidorahi refers to King Ghidorahi – the three-headed, two-tailed monster from Japan, known as the archenemy of Godzilla in the Godzilla film series.
Professor M. Teresa Aguado from the University of Göttingen (Germany), who leads the international research on this new monster, stated that it can also regenerate lost heads and tails just like the imaginary King Ghidorahi.
According to her, the scientific community still needs to unravel the significant mystery of the symbiotic relationship between these monstrous worms and the sponge species that harbor them.
The research was recently published in the scientific journal Organisms Diversity & Evolution.
