Bay Islands (Roatan) Huge Worm: Whatzit?

[Doc]

On maybe my 300th night dive from CoCoView in 08/03, we were returning to the exit and were headed NW past CCV head in 35 fsw when I spotted this thing that was apparently some kind of worm (?).

We were a bit low on air, so not a lot of observational time was spent, but we both took measurements and decided that these two individual critters were 11' and 6'- at least the parts we could see.

They were white, maybe 1" wide and appeared fairly flat. They didn't seem to be sectioned. With my UK1200R light, they reacted and the 11' creature withdrew into a hole (I assume) and left only 12" exposed. The other one was much less affected. I did not observe the details of the head or whatever end was exposed, but then again, it didn't look too distinctive.

They were angled and bent at sharp turns around coral rip-rap, so at first i thought they were fiberglass packing tape and reached out to collect them as debris.

Imagine my surprise as one recoiled very quickly. On this same trip we saw incredible concentartions of those reddish pink blood worms, coral spawn (on several nights over a two week period) and several other strange larval critters inhabiting the water column over my 30 watts of light.

But what was this critter I described above?

 

[Cudabait]

Sounds very much like a Tiger Tail sea cucumber to me. They are truly a facinating creature, and who a thunk a cucumber could move that fast??

 

[davehicks]

Did it look anything like this? (attached photo)

This is a picture of a Tiger Tail sea cucumber that I saw on a night dive in Cozumel. I didn't know what the heck it was either until I looked it up in a book. I wasn't lucky enough to catch it in the act of moving.

Dave