Northwest Dive Club

The eggs hatch as she fans them, larvae pop out & swim away into the water to undergo a series of metamorphoses. The larvae that pop out are called prezoea & they rapidly change into the first of several stages all called zoea (C. magister has 5 zoeal stages I think) before becoming the last...

sea cucumber innards expelled after too much handling?

You've got a better chance of being right than I do. I'm just an armchair diver! so you see what they really look like underwater.

Looks like a deformed tunicate to me. the texture & color look right, and there's one visible siphon in the center of the bulge.

I like them too! In fact, I think they are the pinnacle of evolution, unlike those nasty fishy scaley finny worm-eating things.... :roll: This lovely worm is a Phyllodoce, maybe even the same one that Lamb & Hanby have as A. Someday I'd like to get a couple and figure out what they are. Incident...

Could this be it? http://diszhal.info/english/cichlids/en ... _moori.php

It moves like a polychaete. Might be a big glycerid or nereid but the detail isn't good enough to tell if there are parapodia so I can't be sure.

Cool! That's a Glycera, family Glyceridae and that's very common behavior for them. I don't know why. Maybe it's to make themselves bigger so predators with small mouths can't eat them or maybe the shape enables them to catch currents & move away from pesky photographers.

thanks, Pez! that one is a whole lot closer to a true bobbitt worm than anything we have on this coast.

Hi Tim -- Lovely shot of the worm. Just from the fact it's on a seastar (Pisaster?) I'd say it was probably Arctonoe fragilis. I can't be certain. Your local fauna has a lot in common with ours down here in sunny California but you have many northern species we don't get. Most of my WA-BC collecting...

That's the rear end of a terebellid polychaete. The rest of the body is still inside it's tube.

Bad shrimpie, bad! Not nice to eat cute little onuphid polychaetes!

Et tu, Greg?

Thanks! Mind you this is just a guess but based on the close ups I think it's Phyllodoce medipapillata.

I can't tell you how incredibly honored - and tickled pink - I am to be in an original Honza! Especially in that Saint Georgina and the dragon pose... :thankyouyellow: :thankyouyellow: :thankyouyellow: But the real St George around here is Greg. I may know polychaetes but he knows everything else an...

:supz: :smt038 Most anyone can name a critter that's perfectly photographed but it's really rare to find someone like Greg who can recognize a sand covered Nassarius or a crab from just a glimpse of it's leg. I'm on a lot of critter id boards and let me tell you, the level of correct ids here is pro...

And a really nice one too! It's a phyllodocid, genus Phyllodoce. Not sure what species without a really really close up of the head & the dorsal cirri (the "paddles" along the sides). 10X should do it.

The parasite looks like a leech. In the close up you can see the expanded sucker clinging to the fish.

yeah, then Brad Pitt has another commitment and isn't available to play you for another year, Bruce Springsteen is off on tour & can't get around to writing the music until he gets back...... whatcha gonna do?

Thanks guys. I do have it Greg but it's on loan. A while ago Art Anker mentioned a new edition might be in the works. That would be wonderful news if true.

Hi guys -- I'd like some help with this alpheid. It was living in a Macrocystis pyrifera washed up on Santa Monica beach here in California. I had it for a couple of days before photographing & preserving it. The red is its daytime coloration; at night it would be light tan with no other marks e...

airsix wrote:Stubbies are the best!

Piglets look like an overstuffed sausage with dreadlocks.

On behalf of piglets everywhere I must protest! they look more like Miss Piggy.

They're sooooo KEWTE! http://newnaturalist.com/2008/01/10/hel ... let-squid/

I gotta disagree - the piglet squid gets my vote http://boingboing.net/2008/10/24/piglet ... -cute.html

Which one, Greg?

That's Abdopus aculeatus, the walking octopus, found in Indonesia & other parts of the IP. The 2 males are showing black stripes & fighting over a camouflaged female. The video is one of Chrissy Huffard's. She was the first to report bipedal walking octopuses. A. aculeatus holds up 6 legs in...