Trunk Imagine having no anus. Waste would have nowhere to go, right? Well, that's the case with the tubeworm. It has no anus, and so the sulfate left over after the microbes have done their business is simply stored in the animal's body. Since giant tubeworms can live several decades, you can imagine quite a heap of this stuff building up in their tissues. Yet it is not this waste material but sulfide in the worm's bloodstream that gives the animal its powerful rotten-egg stench. Biologists dissecting tubeworms brought up from the deep say it's one of the nastiest smells you'd ever want to put your nostrils to. (back to illustration) Living at Extremes | Inside a Tubeworm | Deep-Sea Bestiary The Mission | Life in the Abyss | The Last Frontier | Dispatches E-mail | Resources | Table of Contents | Abyss Home Editor's Picks | Previous Sites | Join Us/E-mail | TV/Web Schedule About NOVA | Teachers | Site Map | Shop | Jobs | Search | To print PBS Online | NOVA Online | WGBH © | Updated October 2000