Is it seaweed?
Meignorant.com posts a cool video of a “ninja seaweed” from the Red Sea, off the coast of Egypt.
Its definitely ninja, but is it really seaweed?
Date Posted: May 7, 2009 at 10:31 AM
Date Posted: May 7, 2009 at 10:31 AM
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May 7, 2009 at 11:55 AMjebyrnes
My guess is that it’s some crazy burrowing worm. Damn, though, that’s the biggest feeding structure I’ve seen on one so shallow!
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May 7, 2009 at 12:11 PMMadhu
A couple of marine biologist colleagues here in my department (including a seaweed phylogeneticist) suggest it might be some kind of sea cucumber – the oral tentacles of one.
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May 7, 2009 at 1:36 PMplanktongrl
My vote is for a holothurian (sea cucumber). Anyone send this to ChrisM at the Echinoblog?
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May 7, 2009 at 3:08 PMJason R
Just speculating, but maybe it is the chelonibranch of a buried arsegill sea turtle?
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May 7, 2009 at 3:43 PMKevin Z
Sea cuke
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May 7, 2009 at 3:48 PMBob Abela
Not sure I would touch it with my bare hands, appears to be a branching aneomones (Achinodendron sp).
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May 7, 2009 at 5:10 PMPeter
Bob makes a good case for cnidaria. This one is a pretty close match: http://www.starfish.ch/Fotos/cnidarians-Nesseltiere/corals-Korallen-Anthozoa/hexacorallia-Hexakorallen/sea-anemones-Seeanemonen/Actinodendron-glomeratum2.jpg
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May 8, 2009 at 12:22 AMLiza J
My first guess would be that it’s some kind of sea cucumber. The burrowing sea cucumbers at my work behave in the same way when disturbed.
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May 10, 2009 at 3:36 AMkeir
Another vote for sea cucumber/ holothurian – it appears to have five main “branches”, the oral feeding structures, which accords with the pentaradial body plan of sea cucumbers.
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May 10, 2009 at 2:52 PMUnidentified weirdness
[...] on the identity of this bad boy over at DSN ranged from some sort of cnidarian (like a soft coral or anemone) to a sea cucumber or even some [...]
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October 15, 2009 at 2:51 AMAmy Wagner Fishing
Wow that was really amazing I have never seen anything like that, it looks like sea weed but it also reminds me of an anemone because they too do that whole curling up thing except that they don’t go and bury themselves in the sand.
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