Leslie
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Posts posted by Leslie
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I just heard back from Lindsey Groves, our cowry-loving CM. Blasicrura teres pelluscens (Melvill, 1888). Apparently there's a lot of disagreement among specialists about correct names. He prefers the genus name Blasicrura rather than Tolostolida and considers pelluscens to be a subspecies of teres but agrees that's what it probably is.
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You focused on the wrong thing, Karen! I'm sure you meant to get a good close-up of those tube-dwelling polychaetes right under the fish's mouth...... ;-D
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I'll send this one to my friends, too.
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You really have an affinity for decorators! Sorry, can't id it.
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I'll pass this one to some shrimp friends, see if one of them has an idea of the proper name.
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Do you have a shot of this showing the shape of the back? But also check out Cryptopodia fornicata & it's relatives
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Do you have a good shot of this from above showing the shape of the back?
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Another difficult decorator. Perhaps something like a Schizophrys dama,
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Decorator crabs are difficult. There are so many of them and unless they're extremely particular in their choice of covering, have to be stripped down to be properly identified. Based on the long leg spines I'd call this an Oncinopus. They're commonly & mistakenly lumped together in guide books as Achaeus japonicus.
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Hi Karen -- What fun! How nice to get a big batch of images rather than one every couple of days.
This guy is Exoclimenella maldivensis. The color pattern is very distinctive.
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Have you looked at www.poppe-images.com? They're the best image resource for IP molluscs.
My two top choices are both species of the cypraeid genus Talostolida:
Talostolida pellucens - http://www.poppe-ima...&photoid=974676
Talostolida teres - http://www.poppe-ima...ostolida teres
I'll send it to our mollusc collecton manager who is a cowry researcher & see what he has to say.
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It does look like a tunicate, doesn't it? But it's an clam in the oddball family Galeommatidae. The foot wraps completely around the 2 shells, and they crawl about like snails. Look for images under the family name, under Amphilepida, Scintilla, and Chlamydonconcha for examples.
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Not a baby cephalopod, sorry!
Lindsey Groves, the museum's mollusc collection manager passed on the image to Angel Valdes, co-author with Terry Gosliner & Dave Behrens of "Indo-Pacific Nudibranchs & Sea Slugs". He confirmed that Linda's animal is what they called Haminoeid sp 2 in the book. One thing that keeps it out of the genus Haminoea is the extremely long tail which you can sorta see in Linda's pic & clearly in Indra's Nudipixel pic.
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Just an FYI.....
A lot of people unintentionally use "symbiotic" and "commensal" as synonyms. Symbionts are animals that live in association with another organism; the term doesn't imply anything about their relationship. Commensals are symbionts in a relationship where one benefits while the other is unaffected either negatively or positively. For example, if this isopod is protected from predation by living on the sea fan but the sea fan isn't impacted then it's a commensal association. Mutualism is where both benefit - the isopod gets protection or food while the sea fan gets cleaned of silt or gets additional nutrition from the isopod's feces. There are a lot of different types of symbiotic relationships.
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Very cool!
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I'm not sure Jim - the head just doesn't look right to me. Linda, I've sent your photo to a couple of mollusc colleagues for their opinion.
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I'm pretty sure it's another sphaeromatid isopod Alex.
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The peppermint striped thing in the middle? It's an anemone.
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Thanks for the offer but we don't have anyone currently on staff who works on branchs (my own speciality is polychaete worms). If you really want an id why don't you contact Dr. Terry Gosliner at the California Academy of Sciences? He's one of the top experts for the Indo Pacific, the lead author on a recent big book on IP branchs, and a really nice guy.
His book is at http://www.amazon.com/Indo-Pacific-Nudibranchs-Sea-Slugs/dp/0970057431.
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While it certainly looks the same as Aglaja felis it would take specimen examination & possibly DNA analysis to confirm if the same species occurs in both the Maldives & the Caribbean. A simpler explanation is that its another all black aglajid species.
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I'm sure one of our British members will be along shortly to help you out but I just wanted to say what a great image that is!
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I think so too. For more info do a web search. The Sea Slug Forum archives is a good place to start. www.seaslugforum.net
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Yes - at least temporarily free living. Anemones can move, and in fact one frequent complaint of people with salt-water tanks is that the anemones won't stay in one place. They'll migrate to whatever spot in the tank has the best conditions for them. Some frequently swim as part of their normal behavior (check out the Australian Swimming Anemone & the Alaska Swimming Anemones) while others do it to escape predation or move to a new spot.
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You're right, algae don't have sap. I suspect the name is just a catchy alliteration & over-simplification of what's really happening. "Sap-suckers" are members of the opisthobranch order Sacoglossa and feed by sucking out the internal contents of algal cells.
For more info about sacoglossans check out the wikipedia entry - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacoglossa - or browse through some of the posts on the Sea Slug Forum - www.seaslugforum.net -
Caribbean Isopod on Seafan
in Critter Identification
Posted
I don't, but I"ll ask my supervisor, Regina Wetzer, who's an expert on sphaeromatids.
(10 minutes later). She says no. Only one species out of the whole family has been kept alive in the lab so its life history could be studied. For the rest it's all guesswork as to whether they're true symbionts and the nature of the interaction with the host.
There's a little bit of general information on feeding in a recent paper by Poore & Bruce on Global Diversity of Marine Isopods. It's open access at http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0043529