Underwater Alien ID

[Deuces]

OK, I took this not so great pic a few weeks back out between Lover's and Otter Coves (Monterey). Saw this alien floating around in about 25 fsw. Can't figure it out.

What is it??

 

[Larry C]

Go back one page to my 6/4 Monterey diving pics. I think it's the same thing I shot. If so, the concensus seems to be that it's a Salp chain. The other possible was a Siphonophore. Related to a jellyfish or Portugese Man O' War, they are the closest invertibrates to humans. They have a spinal cord, but no spine. There are a number of images available on Yahoo or Google images under both. Kind of an interesting beast. The Siphonophores usually appear at 2-4,000 feet, but are brought up during upwellings and appear periodically in Monterey.

 

[justleesa]

Moved to the "Name that critter" forum

(sorry, I have no idea what it is)

 

[rainman_02]

http://www.baue.org/images/galleries/local_misc/RB80_salp

http://www.baue.org/videos/dave_salp.html

Salp chain is my guess.

 

[Quero]

This is interesting, and I'm really curious to see if anybody comes up with a definitive answer rather than a guess.

It seems that salps are tunicates and that siphonophores are hydrozoans. So while they both live in colonies that can get quite long, they are physiologically very different. Salps (like other tunicates) don't seem to have "tentacles" in the photos I've seen, whereas siphonophones often do have them.

I've seen a few different kinds of salp chains around here, but I've never seen anything like the creatures in the photo (but of course salp chains here may look nothing like salp chains elsewhere).

Yeah. Really curious.
http://jellieszone.com/gelatinousid.htm
http://www.imagequest3d.com/cgi-bin...g=800&search=plankton&cat=all&tt=&bool=phrase

 

[Deuces]

This is interesting, and I'm really curious to see if anybody comes up with a definitive answer rather than a guess.

Me too. I've heard the same thing being either a guess for salp chain or siphonophore. And the tendencies to lead away from either due to the well-developed tentacles.

I'm really gunning for it being an alien from another planet.

 

[RumBum]

I don't know what that is, but it is definately NOT the creature from The Abyss (although it may actually be from the abyss.)

 

[maractwin]

I'm fairly certain this one is a siphonophore rather than a salp. Salps don't have tentacles, whereas salps do.

It's hard to tell from the picture, but do you recall when you saw this if there was a larger transparent bell on one end? It otherwise looks somewhat like a Praya, see http://www.lifesci.ucsb.edu/~biolum/organism/pictures/praya.html

That's the closest thing I could find in Pacific Coast Pelagic Invertebrates: A Guide to the Common Gelatinous Animals by Wrobel & Mills.

-Mark

 

[Deuces]

It's hard to tell from the picture, but do you recall when you saw this if there was a larger transparent bell on one end?

No, that's it, just that. It wasn't that big either. I'd say maybe about 2 feet from one end of the pic to the other.

 

[AlaskaDiver]

Deuces;
Gorgeous specimen. It probably came in to feed in the warmer waters. It looks to me as a Siphonophore in the sub order Physonecta. They gernerally do not detach and can get extremely long. I'd be curious to see if there are other photos of this under slightly different lighting conditions to better see the outline of the entire creature.