A new animal every day

Today · Wednesday 4 November 2026

A spiral crown of fine maroon and orange feathery plumes rising from pale white coral, with a pink lid beside it.
Photo: Robin White · CC BY 4.0 · iNaturalist

Picked by voters

Christmas tree worm

It breathes and catches food with two spiral crowns. If something scares it, the whole worm snaps back into its hole in the coral.

Lives in
Coral reefLiving coral on tropical reefs of the Caribbean and western Atlantic
More about the Christmas tree wormScientific name, size and Red List status
Scientific name
Spirobranchus giganteus
Size
About 3.8 cm long on average
IUCN Red List
Not evaluated

The IUCN Red List has assessed 175,909 species. This one has not been assessed yet. What this means

Fact source: NOAA Ocean Service

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This week

Every animal so far
  1. Mon 2American bison
  2. Tue 3Common midwife toad
  3. Wed 4Christmas tree wormToday
  4. Thu 5Tomorrow’s animalin 17 h 11 min
  5. Fri 6
  6. Sat 7
  7. Sun 8

Why Animall

People can’t care about animals they have never heard of.

Scientists still discover thousands of new animal species every year, while many others are disappearing because of habitat loss and climate change. Some die out before anyone has described them.

10,000+

new animal species are described every year.

University of Arizona, 2025

86%

of species on Earth, and 91% in the ocean, have not been described yet.

Mora et al., 2011

73%

average drop in monitored wildlife populations between 1970 and 2020.

WWF Living Planet Report, 2024