Kaila Pearson just graduated with her Master’s from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego. She’s here today to talk to me about her paper in the April 22nd issue of Zootaxa in which she and her coauthor describe three new species of deep sea vampire worms. We discuss how life exists without any sunlight, how to collect worms that are a mile (or two!) deep in the ocean, the difference between a deep ocean vent and a seep, why they’re called vampire worms, and how these species got their names!

The title of the paper is “Vampire Worms: A revision of Galapagomystides (Phyllodocidae, Annelida), with the description of three new species.” The paper is currently available here: https://www.mapress.com/zt/article/view/zootaxa.5128.4.1

To learn more about Kaila, follow her on Instagram, @kailacoconut.

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