On 28th October 2025 I was chatting with Jon Beattie at Drumbeg, and he showed me, on his phone, a photo of a very odd-looking beastie. It had turned up on 1st August 2023 in one of his creels, lying at a depth of about 60m, to the east of Rubha na Moile at the mouth of Loch Nedd (NC1434).
The animal was about four inches (10cm) long. Its upper surface was covered with brown felted ‘hair’ with, along the edges, a fringe of fine, silky, iridescent bristles (photo 1). The underside view (photo 2), revealed a flattened sole, composed of some forty segments, many with paired fleshy appendages.
It is about seventy years since I last saw one of these creatures, on a marine biology course at Millport in the Clyde, but it is quite unmistakable. It was a sea mouse Aphrodita aculeata, one of a large group of marine annelids known as bristle or polychaete worms.
According to Wikipedia, this species is found in muddy sand at depths down to 1000m, although it is occasionally washed up on the shoreline after gales. It is an active predator, hunting at night other smaller polychaete worms and small crabs. The iridescent bristles (photo 3) are thought to be a defence device, warning that it is unpalatable.
There are unlocalised records in MarLIN (the Marine Life Information Network) for the seas to the west and north of Assynt, but I can only trace one precise one, on the north side of Loch Glendhu (NC2633) in October 1988. An interesting find.
Ian M. Evans