Fish ID

[calscubagirl]

Need a little help here with fish ID in Hawaii. A friend of mine who recently moved to Kailua, Oahu saw a worm type of creature. White in color with pink stripes. It shrivels up like an accordion I'm assuming if it gets stressed. The circumference is a little bigger than a mini mag flash light. Any ideas?

 

[sliden]

Need a little help here with fish ID in Hawaii. A friend of mine who recently moved to Kailua, Oahu saw a worm type of creature. White in color with pink stripes. It shrivels up like an accordion I'm assuming if it gets stressed. The circumference is a little bigger than a mini mag flash light. Any ideas?

From that description the only things that comes to mind is the Lined Fireworm Pherecardia striata (not so much an accordion though) and the Conspicuous Sea Cucumber Opheodesoma spectabilis

Let me know if that is not it and if you could descibe it in a little more detail.

 

[friscuba]

Need a little help here with fish ID in Hawaii. A friend of mine who recently moved to Kailua, Oahu saw a worm type of creature. White in color with pink stripes. It shrivels up like an accordion I'm assuming if it gets stressed. The circumference is a little bigger than a mini mag flash light. Any ideas?

Sounds to me like it could be one of the medusa worms. If so, it's actually a sea cucumber which appears segmented, moves like an accordian, and has a mouth with about 10 or so feathery tentacles. There are a couple other sea cucumbers which move in this fashion. I used to sell pink ones back in the day when I had an aquarium store on the mainland, I see gray and brown versions here in Kona on a frequent basis.

I've misplaced my Hoover's invert book so I'm not sure what he's calling them. That's the only thing I can think of off hand which has an accordian type movement.

 

[calscubagirl]

My friend took a picture yesterday of this little guy. Hope the picture comes through!

 

[sliden]

My friend took a picture yesterday of this little guy. Hope the picture comes through!

Yupp, that is the Conspicuous Sea Cucumber mentioned in my first post. They are pretty cool and can often be found underneath Gracilaria. Sticky to the touch because they have hooklike spicules.

They are common in Kaneohe Bay and in the Lagoon of Magic Island.

Edit:
By the way, this is a medusa worm as mentioned above and belongs to the family Synaptidae.

 

[calscubagirl]

Yupp, that is the Conspicuous Sea Cucumber mentioned in my first post. They are pretty cool and can often be found underneath Gracilaria. Sticky to the touch because they have hooklike spicules.

They are common in Kaneohe Bay and in the Lagoon of Magic Island.

Edit:
By the way, this is a medusa worm as mentioned above and belongs to the family Synaptidae.

I need to take a fish ID class!! I know some fish and learning more and more but, I had no clue it was a cucumber.
As my friend described it on the phone, I even said Sea Cucumber until she said it looked kind of accordiany and I went the other way.

Thanks for the ID.

 

[DennisW]

Get some good Fish and Creature ID books. Humann's books come to mind. Everytime you come up from a dive, get out the book and ID what you've seen. You will learn a lot that way and probably do better than with a Fish ID class.

 

[Charlie99]

Get some good Fish and Creature ID books. Humann's books come to mind.

Humann's books for Caribbean & Florida are great and I love his method of organizing the book, but even the Indo-Pacific one isn't of that much use in Hawaii due to the large percentage of endemic species.

Hoover's fish and invertebrate books are the standard in Hawaii. Jack Randall's "Shore Fishes of Hawaii" is another good one, with photos that are different enough from Hoovers that it's really nice to have both books.