A tiny but lightning fast marine creature that spent a decade worming its way out of capture after first being discovered, has finally been entered into the books as a new species - and its name pays tribute to the Hunter-based scientist who discovered it.
Dr David Harasti finally managed to capture what is commonly known as a Bobbit worm in 2011 after 10 years of trying.
His efforts have now been rewarded with the species being formally identified and named after him by taxonomists from the Australian Museum in 2022.
Bagging a Eunice dharastii was no mean feat - just ask Dr Harasti.
"When I finally managed to get my fingers around one, as I was pulling it out... the worm just kept stretching out of its hole," he said. "I kept pulling away. This thing is one metre long and it kept coming out and coming out. Suddenly it shot out of the hole like an elastic band, hit me in the face, got all tangled up in my regulator.
"I'm panicking, my dive buddy is laughing so hard he's no help. We finally ended up catching two."
Dr Harasti is a senior research scientist based at the Port Stephens Fisheries Institute in Taylors Beach.
It was when Dr Harasti first moved to Nelson Bay in 2001 that he first spotted the new species of Bobbit worm directly off the town's main swimming beach.
"The worm is living right below them in one metre of water," he said.
Dr Harasti took pictures of the worm and submitted them to taxonomists at the Australian Museum to be described.
They said they did not know what species of worm it was and requested a specimen - two worms that they could then officially describe. It was easier said than done, taking Dr Harasti another 10 years.
"Every time I approached this worm - at night, during the day - it would go straight back down in its burrow," he said. "You couldn't dig it out of its burrow because it would keep retracting below the sand. It is ridiculously fast. As soon as you spook it, it's straight back down in that hole. There was no way I could get it.
"I saw when I went diving in the Philippines, they have a similar looking worm ... using fish to attract the worm. It gave me the idea to do that back in Nelson Bay."
In 2011, after more than 100 attempts, Dr Harasti finally captured two worms to send to taxonomists for description and official recognition as a new species. But it did not go smoothly, to say the least.
"We used a fish to attract the worm out of its hole. I swear we would have tried this at least 100 times. It was ridiculous how many times we failed. Then, finally, I managed to grab it."
Then all hell broke loose underwater with the worm shooting into Dr Harasti's face and getting tangled up in his diving regulator.
"If we filmed this bit, it would have won Funniest Home Videos. It's wrapped around my head and I'm signalling to my buddy to give me the bag to put it in but he's laughing so hard that he's useless. I finally get the bag off him and get it in."
However, it wouldn't be for another 10 years that the worm would be described.
"Because taxonomists in Australia are so busy, they finally got around to the ones sitting in jars on shelves at the Australian Museum," Dr Harasti said.
"They contacted me for more details about where I found it and named it and they were kind enough to name it after to me, which is really nice.
"Taxonomists can name it whatever they want - absolutely anything. But sometimes they are nice enough to name it after the person who discovers it.
"It is a massive honour."
Joana Zanzol from the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro and Pat Hutchings from the Australian Museum Research Institute officially described the species and named it, wrote a paper on the marine worm and published it in the ZooKeys journal on August 24, 2022.
A marine biologist with more than 20 years experience working on threatened marine species, in particular seahorses, and marine biodiversity, Dr Harasti now has three species named after him - a small sea slug, Okenia harastii, a red pipe fish endemic to NSW, Stigmatopora harastii, and the worm, Eunice dharastii.
However, the "holy grail" is to have a seahorse named after him.
"I would give back my three species names if I could have a Hippocampus harastii. I'd want that more than anything else. And trust me, I've tried. I've searched and searched for a new type of new pygmy seahorse in Nelson Bay that no one has seen before," he said. "I've described two new species of pygmy seahorse but, because I described them, I couldn't name them after myself but I was good enough to name them after the places they were discovered.
"You can never name a species after yourself. It's bad karma. I could name it after my wife or kids, but couldn't use the name 'Harasti' if I described a species."
Dr Harasti said the Eunice dharastii was an interesting creature. While about a metre long, the width of its head is only a centimetre. Because of its long mouth and tentacles, it looks bigger than it is.
It is also a predator. The worm will attack little fish, grabbing them with its five tentacles and dragging it down its burrow to eat.
"It's quite ferocious," Dr Harasti said, adding that they were not uncommon to see off Nelson Bay Beach.
"They were very easy to find but I've noticed with the flooding we've had over the last two years that there's a lot less of them."
There are still new species being found and described all the time, Dr Harasti said.
"We have the annual sea slug census here in Nelson Bay and every census we're finding a new species that hasn't been described yet. There's still new species always to be discovered out there."
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