(CNN) Scientists think they have discovered the undersea lair of a giant predatory worm that lived on the ocean floor some 20 million years ago and would pounce on unsuspecting marine creatures. Paleontologists from National Taiwan University believe the 6.5-foot-long burrow was once home to a worm-like predator that would surface from the seabed to ambush sea creatures and drag them, alive, into its lair. Using 319 specimens, experts reconstructed a trace fossil of a dugout -- dubbed Pennichnus formosae -- which was 6.5-feet long and around an inch in diameter, and say morphological evidence indicates that the tunnels were home to giant marine worms, like the modern-day bobbit worm. The bobbit worm, or sand striker (Eunice aphroditois), is an aquatic predatory bristle worm that ranges from 4 inches to 10 feet in length and lives in burrows it creates in the ocean floor. The bobbit worm takes its name from the Lorena and John Wayne Bobbitt case, in which Lorena cut off her husband John Wayne's penis with a kitchen knife.

Source: CNN January 22, 2021 18:11 UTC