WHAT THE??

Sydney has excellent dive sites? one night at Parsley Bay ? an inside the harbour location we saw something strange. The creatures were long green tentacles, with flattened ends that seemed to have sucker plates. They appeared like the pair of ?palps? that squid have only two of, and as such are different to all the other arms. The tentacles were seen extending from under rock crevices, and would retreat when the light was shone toward them. They were long, in the 200mm plus range, and had a diameter of only 5mm or so. The colour was a khaki green colour and a pale whitish hue on the underside. It appeared as though these were Octupus (cephalopod) arms to me, but I was unable to find the other 7 appendages on ANY of the specimens spotted on this dive.
Can anybody shed some light on this strange creature?s name?

Cheers

Rob

Contributed by DM Rob added 2005-03-23

Replies of 4

Tim Hochgrebe added 2005-03-23
Hi Rob,

I have the feeling you might be talking about some kind of spoon worm - echiura

see http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/edu/dees/ees/life/slides/phyla/echiura.html

most commonly seen is Bonellia viridis

http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/resources/Grzimek_inverts/Echiura/Bonellia_viridis.jpg/view.html

Cheers

Tim
Tim Hochgrebe
http://www.underwater.com.au
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SteveW added 2006-02-23

Hi Rob,

Tim is being all scientific and polite because his Mum's in town.

What you've seen is more commonly referred to among night divers as "the big green snot monster". You'll find them in the harbour, as you have, and many other places: eg, Bare Island, Cronulla etc.

I've seen a similar worm around the North Solitary Islands. When I say "similar", it's relative: these ones are white, they come out in the daylight and they're much thinner than the big green snot monsters. A light touch on the end will make them retract like the BGSMs.

Of course, none of this is much help...


SteveW added 2006-02-23

Hi Rob,

Tim is being all scientific and polite because his Mum's in town.

What you've seen is more commonly referred to among night divers as "the big green snot monster". You'll find them in the harbour, as you have, and many other places: eg, Bare Island, Cronulla etc.

I've seen a similar worm around the North Solitary Islands. When I say "similar", it's relative: these ones are white, they come out in the daylight and they're much thinner than the big green snot monsters. A light touch on the end will make them retract like the BGSMs.

Of course, none of this is much help...


SteveW added 2006-02-23

Sorry about the double posting -- I'm a luddite.

BTW, a Google Image search on the scientific name Tim gave, Bonellia viridis, comes up with quite a few pix of the BGSM. Should be what you're looking for.


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