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There are a lot of related species through out the tropics which pretty much look the same.

It does look like a different species. There are a number of them in the area. Astrophyton is just the most conspicuous because of it's size.

Was the dive during the day? That's a basket star curled up & in hiding. Astrophyton muricatum

You're right - it's a snail, Lamellaria diegoensis. They get mistaken for nudibranchs a lot.

Hi everyone -- I belong to SCAMIT - the Southern California Association of Marine Invertebrate Taxonomists - a non-profit dedicated to educating & supporting local taxonomists. Most of our budget goes to training sessions for newbies and grants to encourage publication of new species. Like...

That does look like a frogfish "foot". The likeliest suspect is Antennarius avalonis which is known from the California Channel Islands. color is variable. Antennarius avalonis, Roughbar frogfish:

Different family. It's a phyllodocid. I suspect genus Phyllodoce just from the size & overall appearance but I can't be sure without a close up of the head and anterior regions.

your guess is as good as mine.... :blinking:

I'd go with tunicate. There's a picture of something very similar in Gosliner, Behrens, & Williams' book "coral reef animals of the Indo-Pacific. Listed simply as Didemnid sp (meaning it's in the family Didemnidae but not identified any further than that) all the book says is "This strange...

Long-arm shrimp - but a lot of shrimp have the same common name.

Kemponia platycheles. It was switched into this genus a couple of years ago so you'll find it in older IP guide books & on the web as Periclimenes platycheles.

:shakehead: Nah, I'm just good at looking things up & matching possibilities. You know better than most what it takes to really id something accurately, Arch. :worship:

Okay, so that's the oral disc and there are no digitate tentacles. How about Actinoporus elegans or it's cogeneric A. elongatus? See Humman & DeLoach & also anemones_de mer_twa CCFHR: Stressors: Puerto Rico & Vieques 2008 cruise › Day Four A. elegans is described as having about numerous...

Hi Steve - It's hard to tell if the anemone is closed up & that's the outside of the stalk that's showing or if it's the oral disc. Maybe something like a compacted Alicia mirabilis???? I'm pretty bad at cnidarians - don't ever ask what a coral is & expect an answer! :D

Vie's right, the 1st is a polychaete in the genus Amblyosyllis and it's and adult swollen with gametes. That particular species is quite widespread in the Caribbean. Green shrimp is Neopontonides chacei or something similar. Last shrimp is Periclimenes rathbunae.

My apologies Papa Bear - I didn't know Fijians called these things rag worms. That's the problem with common names! To me rag worm is the name used for a type of large polychaete.

:no :beerchug: :ircqnet:

Not your standard pencil urchin. I checked with Gordon Hendler, the curator of echinoderms here. He said it was an Echinothrix - the clear sheaths around the spines and the large anal sac are typical for the genus and some of the species have blunt-tipped spines. Even individuals of species...

wow, what a beauty! I don't have much on echinoderms so I'll send it on to a couple of colleagues. How deep was it and how big?

Hi Vie -- It's an aeolid and the cerata remind me of a Phyllodesmium but I haven't found a good match for it yet. Some Cuthonas and Catrionas also have those blunt-tipped cerata. Have you looked through the photos on the Sea Slug Forum or Nudipixel yet?