What the heck is this thing in the photo attached? Location was Bonaire, probably about 50 feet deep. The photo was focused on a fish and caught this thing in the lower right corner. I don't recall seeing it.
Purple Thing with White Appendages
- Thread starter TheRedHead
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looking at the thumbnail a lot of things went through my mind: medusa worm, seacucumber, but upon looking at the enlarged photo I am thinking it is a coral..... purple in color, that has been knocked over.... looks like some bleaching too. That is really a guess, but I think that is what we are all going to have to do on this one with a blurry image.
OP
Sorry for the blurry image, but the camera was focused on the foreground and I'm a pretty poor photographer anyway. If it were coral knocked over, I think it would have slid down the wall. I was thinking that the white part of it looks like a White Cryptic Sponge.
I'll go with Polly; that's the holdfast of a gorgonian coral. Probably from a sea whip. The colors are faded due to light attenuation from depth.
The genera from this group don't bleach in a visible way. The color is intrinsic to the skeletal spicules in the outer tissues. They'll retain their color well after death. I've got dried specimens in my lab.
The genera from this group don't bleach in a visible way. The color is intrinsic to the skeletal spicules in the outer tissues. They'll retain their color well after death. I've got dried specimens in my lab.
Oceandvr
Contributor
Initially, the base stood out as a sea fan (genus Gorgonia), but the branching and webbing doesn't appear to match up to that answer. It's difficult to tell without more information or a better photo -- but could be a gorgonian or maybe a sponge.
Oceandvr:
Try not to use holdfast appearance as a diagnostic between gorgonians. The basal tissues mold to the substratum, and can assume almost any shape. Just like in sponges and encrusting tunicates.
Oceandvr
Contributor
archman:
True enough. The best way to identify gorgonian/octocoral taxonomy is through microscopic inspection.
Yeah, but hardly anybody's qualified for species-level spicule analysis,and it takes bloody forever. You can quickly train a student to do pretty decent genus-level ID's by eyeballing the polyp apertures. The latest Humann guide does a bang-up job with this, but very few folks take the time to learn it.Oceandvr:
Unfortunately, redhotmama's pic is too blurry to resolve fine detail. There's at least three genera that this thing could belong to.
Oceandvr
Contributor
archman:
You're absolutely correct on all counts - very few experts with the time to train and someone could learn how to perform a decent identification to genus level using Humann's guide. That's basically how I learned to do octo identification (my area is marine fisheries and stony corals). Of course, those octos that I/we couldn't ID during the surveys, we took small samples for the expert (Wheaton) to ID.
It's too bad that redhotmama's pic is blurry, but hey...something to talk about. Bring on more pictures!
OP
Oceandvr:It's too bad that redhotmama's pic is blurry, but hey...something to talk about. Bring on more pictures!
Are you sure you want more pictures? I went diving with a camera for the first time and shot over 700 pictures.
I'm still sorting them out. The purple enigma was in a batch from a wreck dive and may have been taken from 50 to 110 feet deep. It's amazing what you see when you are looking through a camera screen. I've had all 3 Humann books out since my return.I need to buy a strobe.
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