'Boring,' 'damn ugly,' 'pretty gross': These are words that describe the lugworm

If you've been beach-walking along with us this summer as CBC P.E.I. explores critters that often wash up on Island shores, you may have learned a bit about the fascinating hidden lives of seemingly uninteresting invertebrates.

Lugworms are less fascinating — indeed, just kind of gross.

Take it from the expert.

"I would say that they're pretty damn ugly," said Jeff Clements, an aquatic biologist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

Well, okay. But let's tell you what are they, anyway.

Lugworms are a type of sea worm also known as a sand worm. The ones wiggling and wriggling under Island beaches are northern lugworms.

"If you're looking at this worm, the head or thorax end of the worm is pretty much as thick as the middle end, where the tail is a little bit thinner," Clements said.

"The head is usually dark red in colour. You may see a bulb-like structure coming out at the end of it that might expand and contract. This is what we call a proboscis, and that's what the worm uses to dig and eat."

Around the sides of the abdomen, the worms have a "bunch of little feathery tufts," Clements said. These are the external gills the worm uses to breathe under water.

The tail is "much more boring," Clements said.

In the U.K., they have not just one, but two types of lugworm. Anglers use them as bait. Clements said they're apparently good for catching cod.

"They're not toxic or anything. From my perspective, I'm sure they'd be pretty gross," he said. "But fish like to eat them."

You can usually find them on sand flats and mud flats during low tide, writhing like the worms they are.

At least that's what CBC News pictures them doing. You can't really see them for the most part, since they're beneath the sand, though there's evidence they're there. (More on that later.)