DISCOVERY OF VESTIMENTIFERAN TUBE-WORMS IN THE EUPHOTIC ZONE

To date, vestimentiferan tube-worms have been considered to be a typical member of the deep-sea biological communities supported by chemosynthetic production. In 1993, during a series of surveys exploring the biological community accompanied by submarine fumaroles called ''Tagiri'' by local fishermen, thousands of vestimentiferans were discovered to form clusters at a depth of 82 m in Kagoshima Bay, southern Japan. The tube-worms were collected by means of a small dredge attached to a deep-tow color TV system. Some dozen of living worms has been maintained in a laboratory for more than 220 days. The vestimentiferans in Kagoshima Bay are remarkable not only in the shallowest occurrence in the world but also in the first record from the euphotic zone.