Blue leafy thing

[under water]

Hi,
I was diving near Quadra Island, BC, Canada when I saw this blue leafy thing. It seemed to have reddish brown tips.
It was about 40' down and mixed in with a LOT of other stuff.
It's about the size of my hand, maybe smaller.
Any ideas?

Thanks,

 

[archman]

By shape and colour, it's likely a frondose brown alga with some really wack accessory pigments.

I don't know your west coast algal species well enough for a better ID than that, sorry.

 

[MarkH]

Yep, it's a kind of iridescent algae. It's pretty common up here. The weird thing is that it's usually solitary, unlike most other local seaweeds that carpet the bottom. I'm trying to imagine what a undersea carpet of that stuff would look like.

 

[MarkH]

I looked up the latin name. =Iridea, Gymnogongrus.
There are also some other strange solitary ones that are an artificial-looking bright orange. From far away, they look like lacy plastic fishing lures.

 

[Rick Murchison]

I looked up the latin name. =Iridea, Gymnogongrus.
There are also some other strange solitary ones that are an artificial-looking bright orange. From far away, they look like lacy plastic fishing lures.

The wonders never cease underwater, eh?
I do love this diving stuff!
Rick

 

[under water]

I looked up the latin name. =Iridea, Gymnogongrus.
There are also some other strange solitary ones that are an artificial-looking bright orange. From far away, they look like lacy plastic fishing lures.

Thanks!
You are very lucky to be local to such wonderful diving. I just wish I was more experienced and could have relaxed a bit more. That way, I could have seen more.
Of course, it wasn't just the newness of the current and all the extra gear that was got in the way of relaxation, it was also the sheer magnitude of living colours and shapes. I am sure I only really saw about one tenth of what I was looking at. It wasn't hard to see that blue algae amongst all the red though!
I have already noticed creatures in my pics that I didn't see when I was taking them
That didn't happen in Honduras of St Croix.

 

[MarkH]

Thanks!
You are very lucky to be local to such wonderful diving. I just wish I was more experienced and could have relaxed a bit more. That way, I could have seen more.
Of course, it wasn't just the newness of the current and all the extra gear that was got in the way of relaxation, it was also the sheer magnitude of living colours and shapes. I am sure I only really saw about one tenth of what I was looking at. It wasn't hard to see that blue algae amongst all the red though!
I have already noticed creatures in my pics that I didn't see when I was taking them
That didn't happen in Honduras of St Croix.

To be honest, I really don't like diving in strong current either. Some people think it's fun, but they must not be photographers. When I dive in the tropics, I usually end up missing the variety of species I can see in a square foot back here at home. One exception was Fiji which came close.

 

[under water]

I looked up the latin name. =Iridea, Gymnogongrus.
There are also some other strange solitary ones that are an artificial-looking bright orange. From far away, they look like lacy plastic fishing lures.

Thanks for the ID.
One other creature has also eluded ID.
Is this some form of anemone?

It had a wonderful green glow when photographed without flash, which may just be the reflection of the water color.

The closest thing I can find is a basket star or pale sea cucumber, but I just can't bring myself to believe that.. yet.

Thanks!!

Frank

 

[archman]

Those do look like the buccal tentacles of a sea cucumber.

 

[under water]

Those do look like the buccal tentacles of a sea cucumber.

I found this site http://www.elasmodiver.com/BCMarinelife/BCML echinodermata.htm which pretty much confirms that they are sea cucumbers. How did I not know about the variety of these creatures before!
All I saw was their mouth ends sticking up from the rocks. I didn't have a clue all that stuff was attached to bodies hiding in the rocks!
Man, I had no idea just how much species diversity there was in British Columbian waters.
And some of it is so well camouflaged

Here it looks like this fish is parked alongside another variety of sea cucumber.
Now to identify all those little blobs of white..