Family : Serpulidae
The Protula tubularia is a Mediterranean sedentary Polychaeta present also on the two sides of the Atlantic and in other seas. The vermiform body is protected by a solid calcareous tube, up to 1 cm broad, that the animal builds around, after having chosen for fixing a ridge where pass the currents rich of plankton. From the tube where it moves, where stands the house chosen for the life, get out two elegant gill crowns, red or orange with refined dots and fading to white. Completely retractable in case of danger, in the mean time they serve for breathing and seizing the suspended food particles that the animal nourishes of. The sexes are separate and the future spouses cannot move, but at the time of wedding the females take the initiative launching love messages with the pheromones. The male replies and then they synchronize the emission of the sperm and of the eggs, mainly entrusted to the currents © Giuseppe Mazza