---
title: "Coil Worm"
description: "Spirorbis spirorbis — Outros animais. Spirorbis spirorbis or Spirorbis borealis is a small (3–4 mm) coiled sedentary marine polychaete worm in the Serpulidae family that lives attached to seaweeds and eel grass in shallow saltwater."
canonical: https://animalchecklist.com/pt/animal/coil-worm
last_updated: 2026-09-20
---

# Coil Worm

> Spirorbis spirorbis — Outros animais. Spirorbis spirorbis or Spirorbis borealis is a small (3–4 mm) coiled sedentary marine polychaete worm in the Serpulidae family that lives attached to seaweeds and eel grass in shallow saltwater.

- Scientific name: *Spirorbis spirorbis*
- Category: `other` (Outros animais)
- Habitats: `sea` (Mar e costa)
- iNaturalist observations: 1681
- Wikidata: [Q1986934](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1986934)
- iNaturalist taxon: [194018](https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/194018)

## Names

- en: Coil Worm
- de: Posthörnchenwurm
- fr: Spirorbe
- nl: Spiraalkokerworm

## Countries with the most observations

GB (220), US (178), CA (95), FR (53), DK (38), NO (34), SE (24), DE (22), IE (22), IS (17), IM (7)

## Summary

Spirorbis spirorbis or Spirorbis borealis is a small (3–4 mm) coiled sedentary marine polychaete worm in the Serpulidae family that lives attached to seaweeds and eel grass in shallow saltwater. It is commonly called the sinistral spiral tubeworm and is the type species of the genus Spirorbis.
It was first described in 1758 by Carl Linnaeus as Serpula spirorbis. 
S. spirorbis is a cross-fertilising hermaphrodite that broods its young in a tube attached to the worm inside the shell. The larvae are released at an advanced stage of development and spend just a few hours as free-living organisms before attaching themselves…

Text: Wikipedia (en), CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirorbis_spirorbis

## Photo

![Coil Worm](https://animalchecklist.com/img/animals/coil-worm/medium.jpg)

Photo: Kevin Achtmeyer · CC0 · inaturalist — https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/225128442

## Machine access

`GET https://animalchecklist.com/api/v1/animals/coil-worm?lang=pt` — see [openapi.json](https://animalchecklist.com/openapi.json).