An #Invertefest mystery! I don't know what this is. I *think* it might be the mouth and tentacles of a buried sea cucumber of some sort, but I don't recall it doing the usual food-to-mouth transfer that you often see with those. Maybe it's a small aquatic Sarlacc? #MarineLife 🌿
Note all of those grape like nodules between the arms? those are batteries of stinging cells.
I was totally unfamiliar with anemones having tentacles that look like miniature broccoli... I've only ever really seen them with relatively smooth ones.
Yeah. I think perhaps one of these. One imagines it is leaves quite a painful sting..so hopefully you didn't touch it! www.inaturalist.org/observations...
Ya, that was what the AI on iNat suggested now that I've just posted my pic there :) And it definitely looks right.
I have mixed feelings about AI and iNat but ultimately I think contributing a photo of an uncommon and frankly. gorgeous animal is a good thing! Glad that you asked and I encourage you to always ask and ask a person! 😀👍
I think stuff like this is one of the use-cases where AI can actually be useful to point you in the right direction. We definitely need the humans though... the problem is that I don't have enough knowledge to recognize when the AI gets it wrong, and so I'm sure as hell not going to trust it.
And definitely didn't try touching it :) Almost always a bad idea when diving... if you don't damage yourself you'll probably damage whatever it was you just prodded.
This one's even funnier than The first image. God I never matured past 13 🤣
Also.. where was this taken?
Anilao, Philippines. And probably at around 10-15m deep, if that helps
I would say an apparent cerianthid sea anemone. There's a set of feeding tentacles around the interior circle-and the feeding arms are a different texture than what I'd expect in a cuke.. @megdaly.bsky.social what say you?
Actinodendronid sea anemone, I think. These guys are common in the indo-west Pacific and tend to be zippy.... Common name is hellfire anemone
@xenomatt.bsky.social Meg is a global authority on sea anemones..so definitely not a sea cucumber!
I love the fact that you can chat to global authorities on things here :) Meg was telling me some cool stuff about tube anemones a while back...
Everything about anemones is cool!!
YES! ha ha! I got finally got one! THANK YOU!
Thanks!
I'm pretty sure that's a chocolate starfish
My inner 13-year-old boy not stop laughing at this image and your question
@echinoblog.bsky.social what do you think about this weird critter?
I think it's cuke as well, but indeed @echinoblog.bsky.social is the Knower
I mean, I count 24 tentacles without any sign of segmentation and the spotted bands separating them don't look like ambulacral rows to me. I like the anemone hypothesis.