Oxygen – who needs it?
We tube-worms like it hot down on the bottom of the sea,
So hydrothermal vents nearby are just our cup of tea.
We’ve got no mouth or anus, and we haven’t any eyes;
We don’t need light – just microbes that can chemosynthesise.
They live in “feeding bodies” down inside our waving trunks
And put together H2S and CO2 in microchunks
Of real organic matter – CH2O building blocks.
That’s all we need to live on as we sit here on the rocks.
The H2S they get from us; our tentacles extract it
From sea-water that’s round about – it’s easy once you’ve cracked it!
We co-exist: those little bugs just couldn’t live without us.
It’s symbiosis. Now you know what’s so unique about us.