Giant glowing worm recorded by divers was 'a colony'

MASBATE CITY, Philippines, March 2 (UPI) -- Divers in the Philippines captured underwater footage of a translucent worm-like creature later identified as a pyrosome.

Diver Ryan Carpenter posted a video to YouTube showing the 4-foot-long translucent worm-like creature he encountered with his diving companions in late February off Ticao Island.

Carpenter said a Reddit user identified the glowing creature as a pyrosome, which is actually a "colony of animals called tunicates."

Carpenter said the pyrosome was about 4-feet-long and 4 to 5 inches in diameter.

Tunicates are each less than an inch in size, but they combine into tube-like pyrosomes that can grow to be more than 20 yards long.