Northwest Dive Club

Hi David, Your worm does appear to be a terebellid (aka spaghetti worm) but it doesn't look quite right for the most commonly seen local terebellid Thelepus crispus . I didn't have much luck but if you do a really persistant image search on Google or Bing you could get lucky. It's pretty unusual to ...

Hello again, Unlike with many nudibranchs, defining the diet of this species is fraught with difficulties since they seem to be willing to eat whatever is available and within their abilities to capture. Here's a link to a paper describing them eating snails: http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bit...

Hello, I'm assuming that you're referring to Dirona albolineata . If that's the case then it most likely does not sequester nematocysts in the manner of the aeolid nudibranchs. Acccording to The Sea Slug Forum this species mainly eats bryozoans and other almost exclusively non-stinging prey. The sit...

Hi Kathy, I'm going to respectfully and tentatively disagree on the anemone ID. The fat tentacles and lined oral disk make me thing it's a stubby rose anemone aka Urticina coriacea . Not being a diver, I'm not familiar with conditions at Redondo but one would expect to see this anemone mostly buried...

Greetings, The line between taste and smell is pretty blurred for aquatic critters. That said, shrimp have a very well developed chemosensory ability with what amount to 'taste buds' all over with concentrations on the antennae and feet. Some shrimp also have quite effective eyesight (at least for a...

Great find! Can these sting you like sting rays? Nope! The area of the skate's tail that corresponds to the sting area on a stingray is occupied by a bumpy longitudinal ridge (which is visible in the photos). Bigs, at least youngsters like the one pictured, do sometimes flail their tail around as i...

Hi Kathy, I think what you've got there is a Pacific Sandfish - Trichodon trichodon It's listed in Lamb's Coastal Fishes of the PNW (page 58 of the 1st edition and page 89 of the 2nd edition). It's also listed in Love's Certainly MTYWTKATFOTPC (page 471) but not in his Probably MTYWTKATFOTPC Where y...

Greetings, To the books already listed, I would add: Whelks to Whales by Rick Harbo - Though less comprehensive than Andy Lamb's book it's also cheaper and easier to take along in the car or boat. Certainly More Than You Wanted to Know About the Fishes of the Pacific Coast by Milton Love - This is o...

Hi Tim, Gumboots, like other chitions, use their mucous lined foot to adhere very strongly to solid surfaces. My sense is that gumboots don't grip quite as tightly as other chitons on a pound for pound basis; also gumboots seem to be willing, if not eager, to venture onto sand at times. As to flippi...

Hi Tim, If you haven't seen one before it's understandable that 'chiton' would not leap to mind. Consider that the scientific name for this beast is Crypto chiton stelleri and that crypto means 'hidden'. As an aside, ' stelleri ' honors Georg Wilhelm Steller; a German scientist best known for his wo...

Hi John, I think your animal is a sedentary polychaete. At the Feiro Center we have some critters, that look very much like yours, growing on some empty rock scallop shells. From a distance (for me that means a foot or more) it looks like the shell in question is moldy; a closer look reveals individ...

Greetings, I can't help with suggestions on where Sea Pens are to be found but I thought some of you might be interested in an article on the life history of this animal: http://ronshimek.com/blog/ For anyone not familiar with Ron Shimek, he has a doctorate in marine biology and has been a researche...

Hi Kelly,

I'm voting for Slender Cockscomb based on the stripes under the jaw. Also, I think the eye bars on the High Cockscomb are more diagonal than the ones in your excellent photo.

Speculatively yours,

Alex

Hi BillyD, I'm no expert but that fish looks to me to be a Red Irish Lord. The eyes appear larger and wider set than a Buffalo Sculpin; also the snout looks a bit longer and more tapered. Finally, according to Andy Lamb, this is a little early in the season for a Buff to be guarding eggs but it's ju...

I'm a little confused though, would taking momma and daddy out and sticking them in the plain boring tank (maybe with a hideyhole or two) make them stop caring for the egg mass? or would it be just too hard on their psyche? Hi Blaiz, Moving them to a non-community tank would probably not be a probl...

Hi Dave, The octopus in your video appears to be O. rubescens so I'm basing my guesses on that. I'm not so good at estimating size but, unless you've got really big fingers, that animal looks too young to be mating (insert joke about today's kids here). My books indicate that O. rubescens maxes out ...

Hi Dave, If your worm was 30" long it would almost have to be either Nereis brandti or N. virens . If it was 12" then you could include a number of other possibilities: N. vexillosa , Phyllodoce spp., Glycera americana , or Nephtys spp. (which could be described as looking 'fluffy'). One o...

Howdy, The fish pictured seems to have a scalloped appearance around the mouth. I can't find a reference about this or a photo showing this feature in my (rather limited) library or on the Fishbase site - looking at both Lobefin and Tidepool snailfish. Is this a variable characteristic or am I just ...

Greetings, That is one handsome fish! I looked this fellow up on Fishbase and noticed that the photos taken in the fish's natural habitat look like the one shown in this thread but that photos taken of collected fish show a flabby protruberant schnoz; is that an artifact of the pressure change or so...

Hi Ann, I'm certainly not qualified to disagree with Greg's I.D. [Although we do have an Epiactis fernaldi at the Feiro Center that's nearly 4" across the tentacle crown and is almost but not quite as 'bushy' as the anemone in your photo.] But, even assuming that yours is a Metridium , it's cer...

Hello again, Dusty2 wrote: Definitely a longfin gunnel. No hesitation. I see then every dive at Point Hudson. I stand corrected. On closer examination I think the most noticeable difference (which I managed to not notice) is the head oramentation; it seems to be more elaborate on P. schultzi than on...

Hi, I think more pictures are needed. Specifically photos of the column and of the oral disk. My first thought was that it is a member of the genus Epiactis (often called brooding or proliferating anemones). There are something like 4 to 6 different Epiactis species around the NW and the differences...

Hi, Your gunnel seems to be a pretty good match for the Red Gunnel Pholis schulzie which is a species not often reported. It could also, as others have mentioned, be a Longfin Gunnel but I suspect that it would take a number of additional photos, including some detailed macro shots of the back and f...

Greetings, Sorry to come to this thread (and this forum) so late; I only learned of it recently. By way of introduction, my name is Alex Hirsekorn and I’ve been a volunteer docent at the Feiro Marine Life Center in Port Angeles, WA for approx. 10 years. I am not a diver. The original question in thi...