---
title: Common Fireworm (Eurythoe complanata)
scientific_name: Eurythoe complanata
common_name: Common Fireworm
taxon: Fireworms
published: 2026-08-10T14:05:19.321Z
updated: 2026-08-10T14:31:04.219Z
tags: Common Fireworm, Eurythoe complanata, Fireworms, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/worms/fireworms/common-fireworm
---

# Common Fireworm (*Eurythoe complanata*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Fireworms (*Amphinomidae*)
- **Size:** up to 24 cm
- **Depth:** 0-30 m
- **Diet:** Scavenger
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Under stones and coral rubble in the shallows
- **Reproduction:** Broadcast spawner, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Dangerous, Venomous

## How to recognise it

- long pale segmented body, flatter and paler than the bearded fireworm
- dense white bristles along both flanks, no red gill tufts
- found under stones by day, on open rubble at night
- length up to 24 cm

A long, pale, flattened worm reaching about 24 cm (9 in), with dense white bristles down both flanks and none of the red gill tufts that mark its bearded relative. It is the fireworm most people actually meet, because it lives under stones in the shallows exactly where hands go.

The bristles work the same way: brittle, hollow, and loaded with a compound that produces burning and swelling for hours after the worm itself is gone. Divers get stung turning rocks, waders get stung standing on them. The species is a scavenger rather than a coral eater, arriving in numbers wherever something has died, and it is one of the reliable animals of any night dive over rubble. Like the rest of the family it regenerates readily - a fragment of a few segments can rebuild a whole worm.

## Also known as

- **English:** Orange Bristle Worm, Orange Fire Worm, fireworm
- **French:** Ver de feu orange
- **German:** Feuerwurm
- **Spanish:** Gusano de fuego
- **Portuguese:** verme-de-fogo
- **Japanese:** ハナオレウミケムシ
- **Chinese:** 扁猶帝蟲
- **Russian:** Огненный червь обыкновенный

## Scientific synonyms

- *Amphinome (Eurythoe) pacifica* (Kinberg, 1857)
- *Amphinome (Pleione) alcyonia* [auct. misspelling of '<i>alcyonea</i>']
- *Amphinome complanata* (Pallas, 1766)
- *Amphinome jamaicensis* Schmarda, 1861
- *Amphinome macrotricha* Schmarda, 1861
- *Amphinome pacifica* (Kinberg, 1857)
- *Aphrodita complanata* Pallas, 1766
- *Blenda armata* Kinberg, 1867
- *Eurythoe albosetosa* Kinberg, 1867
- *Eurythoe alcyonia* [auct. misspelling of alcyonea]
- *Eurythoe assimilis* McIntosh, 1924
- *Eurythoe capensis* Kinberg, 1857
- *Eurythoe corallina* Kinberg, 1857
- *Eurythoe ehlersi* Kinberg, 1867
- *Eurythoe havaica* Kinberg, 1867
- *Eurythoe indica* Kinberg, 1867
- *Eurythoe kamehameha* Kinberg, 1857
- *Eurythoe macrotricha* (Schmarda, 1861)
- *Eurythoe pacifica* Kinberg, 1857
- *Eurythoe pacifica levukaensis* McIntosh, 1885
- *Lycaretus neocephalicus* Kinberg, 1867
- *Pleione alcyonea* Lamarck, 1818

## Range

Caribbean Sea, Cuba, Gulf of Mexico, Madagascar, Mediterranean Sea - Eastern Basin, Mozambique, North Atlantic Ocean, Puerto Rican Exclusive Economic Zone, Red Sea, South Africa, Tyrrhenian Sea

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/worms/fireworms/common-fireworm)*
*Updated: August 10, 2026*