Invertibrate ID Help

[orangelion03]

My buddy and I visited the Marineland dive site yesterday and had a pretty good time. Lot's of critters I hadnt seen before. One left us a bit perplexed as I was not able to find it in any of the guides I have. A verbal description will have to do as I knew it was going to be a rocky entrance and being rather clumsy, I thought it was a good idea to leave the camera at home

It looked kind of like an anemone, with concentric bands of white ribbon-like panels...we reffered to it as a ribbon anemone but a web search didnt turn up anything under that name. It was about 2-3 inches in diameter and maybe 2 inches tall.

Next time I decide to dive without my "good" camera (Canon A95/Inon D-2000), I will at least pack a "disposable" film camera to record things for ID later.

Cheers!!

Robert Arance

 

[drbill]

Phil Garner (MaxBottomTime) is your man on Marineland. Sure it wasn't a nudibranch egg mass?

 

[MaxBottomtime]

The only ringed anemone I can think of offhand from Marineland is this purple variety.

Could it have been something other than an anemone?

 

[wetrat]

Sounds like nudibranch eggs to me too. Did they look like this?

View attachment 28653

 

[orangelion03]

Thank you John, that is indeed what we saw!! Fantastic!!! I had no idea that nudis layed eggs that way. Damn I do enjoy learning new stuff!!! Thanks John and DrBill!!
Great shot of that ringed anemone Max! Wish I had noticed one of those.

Interestingly, we spotted this egg patch on a rock immediately above a Sea Lemon. Are all nudibranch eggs arranged like this or do different types create different aggregations?

 

[drbill]

Different nudibranch species create different types of egg masses, although related species are often similar. You may well have seen the egg masses from that sea lemon. I found a lot of egg masses on my dives at Ship Rock Saturday.