Talk:Riftia

I've heard they live for over 300 years growing a quarter of an inch a year. Can anyone find a source for this?--Wowaconia 04:04, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

• This website^[1] states that "The most realistic age estimate for an average 2-meter-long tubeworm, taking into account the changing growth rates over the animal's life, is 170 to 250 years old."
  --Jefftheworld (talk) 06:34, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

The article says that they evolved this way because they live so deep. Isn't it more likely they live so deep because they evolved that way? Obviously they'd have to become extremophilic before they could survive in that environment, and considering which one is the faster process... Not that I believe in such things, of course. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.122.63.142 (talk) 17:07, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

• The cryptic irony of this colleague (64.122.63.142 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • WHOIS • RDNS • trace • RBLs • http • block user • block log)) would, i suppose, be irrelevant if the article had said something like they describe, at the time they made this contribution. It didn't, and doesn't, so the above is effectively nonsense. (Perhaps their complaints are about one of the referenced sources, rather than "[t]he article" as stated.) I am striking thru the 17:07, 2 April 2008 contrib on this talk page. If someone can find something that makes it relevant here, please revert my strike-out markup, and explain the struck-out material to the rest of us.
  --Jerzy•t 22:52, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I have altered the original order classification of Pogonophora (described by Wikipedia's own disambiguation page as obsolete) with Canalipalpata. This is consistent with Wikipedia's classification of the Siboglinidae family, which I confirmed independently in the literature:

Jennings, Robert M. & Kenneth M. Halanych (2005). "Genomes of Clymenella torquata (Maldanidae) and Riftia pachyptila (Siboglinidae): Evidence for Conserved Gene Order in Annelida". Molecular Biology and Evolution 22 (2): 210–222. doi:10.1093/molbev/msi008. ("R. pachyptila is in Siboglinidae within Canalipalpata.")

Eunomiac (talk) 16:00, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

• What Jennings & Halanynch said, under the main heading "Methods" and the sub-head "Organisms", was in context

Clymenella torquata and Riftia pachyptila were chosen to obtain better representation of annelid diversity than is currently available for mitochondrial genomes. C. torquata is in Maldanidae within Scolecida and R. pachyptila is in Siboglinidae within Canalipalpata.

so a source accepted as a better than average professional authority on the subject would be far better. In fact, they were, already when cited in the accompanying article, outdated by several years by the source cited in Annelid#Family tree. (I can't tell whether the research Jennings describes might not have contributed to the "[conclusion] that the classification of polychaetes into Scolecida, Canalipalpata and Aciculata was useless". They seem to have hoped to show that the annelids have low genetic diversity, by measuring a low genetic difference between these two species, but the eventual interpretation of their results may instead be that the species are more closely related than the number of branchings separating their (2004) classifications suggested.)
In any case, both Canalipalpata and Pogonophora should be mentioned, since readers don't immediately abandon obsolete terminology, let alone stop consulting works that use it.
Let's also add a source that is up to date, and supports the current classification -- whatever that turns out to be -- in a more compelling context than a research design that apparently misunderstood which species belong in the same order.
--Jerzy•t 22:52, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I stripped this out of what is now Tube worm (body plan):

It may also refer to the bright red worms found living at the bottom of the ocean near active sulfur vents. These worms live in huge colonies clumped together around the hydrothermal vents.

If i don't get around to checking that all of it duplicates the accompanying article, could someone do so, and note below that it's done, or unsuitable?
--Jerzy•t 04:03, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

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Taking in account that earth is 4.5 billion years old and the hydrothermal underwater vents won't be far just say 4 billion years old, is it possible that these worms and other species living in this environment are about 4 billion years old as well? Which could possible make it the oldest living life form in the world? 206.83.103.20 (talk) 18:47, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

There's no evidence to think that large multicellular organisms like Riftia evolved anywhere near that long ago. We don't even have firm evidence of single-celled life 4 billion years ago; the evidence doesn't really become irrefutable until 3.8 to 3.5 billion years ago. And there is no trace of large multicelled organisms in the fossil record until about 600 million years ago. So by far the simplest explanation is that these worms evolved under milder conditions, near the surface, a few hundred million years ago (like other annelids), and then subsequently adapted to life in the deep. Amber Kerr (talk) 20:59, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

I have a feeling that the sources that were used to create this article muddles up tube worms and conflates the species together. These Riftia worms can only live as long as the hydrothermal vent remains active, which are often rather short for individual stacks that may shift too far from the hotspot and "shut down", starving the attached worms, or they may be outcompeted by bivalves; this contrasts with cold seep tubeworms which live in a more stable environment, and thus can live for longer. Anthropophoca (talk) 11:35, 8 July 2025 (UTC)