Squidworm tactics in Tawi-Tawi
You’ll find Badjao, Samals and Tausug in Tawi-Tawi, our island province that shares sea borders with the Malaysian State of Sabah and the Indonesian Kalimantan province. Tawi-Tawi is just 20 kilometers away from Sabah and was previously part of the province of Sulu. Its name Tawi-Tawi is an extension of the Malay word jauh meaning “far.” Prehistoric travellers from the Asian mainland would repeat the word as “jaui-jaui” to mean “far away.”
Most of the people in Tawi-Tawi belong to the Sama Cultural group. Within this group are subgroups of various Samal or Samas — the Sama Sibutu from the Sibutu-Sitangkai Island Group, Sama Simunul from Simunul-Manuk Mangkaw Island Group, and so on, depending on their islands origins. An example of the Samal’s commerce with Sabah: I used to tell Islamic, my favorite Samal who drowned at sea, to buy me gold in Sabah. He’d leave at dawn by speedboat and return at 5 p.m. with a piece of gold and candy named Ting-Ting Djahi from Indonesia. That’s very common to sail back and forth in launchas, speedboats, or Samal-Badjao tiny boats that are their homes.
Behind and beyond Tawi-Tawi’s sandy white beaches, the province has 107 islands and the deepest seas. Their waters vary in color, from blue to white or gray, indicating the sea’s depths where — surprise — a newfound sea creature, the squidworm, was recently discovered. It certainly took years to make sure no “fish” other than our squidworm existed anywhere in the world, just in Tawi-Tawi.
The squidworm was discovered by a remotely operated underwater robot exploring the deep waters of the Celebes Sea in October of 2007. The Celebes Sea, which merges with the Sulu Sea, is the largest habitat for sea life. It is a basin with a maximum depth of approximately 6,200 miles located between the Philippines and Indonesia, far away from any major land mass. The Celebes is also home to a diversity of lanternfish, hatcherfish, dragonfish and anglerfish.
Our squidworm was found freely swimming, in situ. Observations of the squidworm were made using a remotely operated vehicle called the Max Rover Global Explorer during Philippines research aboard the BRB Hydrographer Presbitero. With up to 10 squid-like limbs, it resembled a segmented worm, an annelid just like an earthworm. The squidworm Teuthidodrilus samae was named after my Samals of Tawi-Tawi as suggested by Dr. Filemon Romero of the Mindanao State University. Based on gut content and videos, the researchers suspect that the squidworm feeds on “marine snow” such as sinking plankton, fecal material, dead animals, cast-off mucus that rains down from the upper layers of the ocean.
Live specimens were relaxed in magnesium chloride and fixed formalin and examined in the laboratory with light and scanning electron microscopy. Tissues removed from three dead squidworms were placed in chilled 95 percent ethanol for genetic analysis. Specimens were dissected; branchiae and chaetae were embedded in Spurr’s resin, sectioned and stained with toluidine blue for histological examination.
The slimy animal’s flattened body is 3.5 inches long and possesses 25 or more pairs of translucent white paddles arranged on its sides for swimming and up to 10 fragile, tentacle-like appendages at its head that are the same length as its body or longer.
The creature is eyeless, explains researcher Karen Osborn, a marine biologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California. To make its way around, it relies on frilly organs on its head for smell and what seem to be structures at the tips — appendages for touch and smell. That indicates it belongs to the deep bentho-pelagic community of the Celebes Sea basin.
These new findings go to show, according to proud Samal Dr. Filemon G. Romero, that Tawi-Tawi is a small but persistent province, where the Samal squidworm emerged as a new species, an ancient form of life that must have cross-mated with new forms. After waiting five years, Tawi-Tawi is on the map again of International studies after verifying the squidworm is unique only to Tawi-Tawi in the Philippines.
Special thanks to the science party of Exploring the Inner Space of the Celebes Sea 2007 which was involved in the Remotely Operated Vehicle or ROV operations and collection of polychaete specimens here: Michael AW, director, Ocean Environment Australia & Ocean Society; Veleriano Borja, marine biologist who specializes in plankton; Joseph Caba, ROV pilot/technician; Richard Michael Cole, ROV pilot, National Geographic Society who brought back first-time animal images from up to two miles deep in Antarctica, the Eastern, Western and Central Pacific; Cabell Davis, senior scientist with a focus on zooplankton; Cameron De Mars, Science Bureau of the US Department of State; Adonis S. Floren, marine researcher of Silliman University, Dumaguete City; Peggy Hamner, co-director, University of California; William Hamner, Professor Emeritus, University of California on behavioural role of marine animals; Russ Hopcroft, Associate Professor, Institute of Marine Science, University of Alaska, Fairbanks; Talina Konotchick of Scripps Institution of Oceanography; Emory Kristof, National Geographic photographer whose system for the Argo vehicle found the submerged Titanic; Nick Loomis; Laurence Madin, overall expedition manager; Toshinobu Mikagawa, ROV pilot/technician explorer from the Bering Straits to the deepest Mariana Trench; Hildie Maria Nacorda, Ph.D., Marine Institute, University of the Philippines; Mike Nicholson, ROV pilot/technician explorer of the Arctic Ocean; Gwen Noda, program coordinator, University of California, Los Angeles; Joseph Christopher Rayos, Philippine fishery biologist; Rogelio C. Rivera, National Museum of the Philippines; Filemon G. Romero, Ph.D., Professor, Mindanao State University, Tawi-Tawi College of Technology Philippine Oceanography; Mely Romero, Ph.D., Director of Research, Mindanao State University, Tawi-Tawi. Gregory S. Stone, specialist in undersea technology; and Ralph White, researcher, cameraman for National Geographic Society.
Congratulations to the scientists. Mabuhay ang Pilipinas!Squidworm, 3.5 inches long. A new record in science, it’s the first species of its kind in the world found in the deep waters of Tawi-Tawi. Named after the gentle Sama people, Teuthidodrilus samae.
