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| Originally Posted by Richard Mason;664368 in Chepstow thread Actually, just got back from there. Dived right in front of the Candlestick, that's the thinner stack between the fat ones. Had a wonderful dive, my Swiss bud. took lotsa photos. Including one of the weirdest "whaddafuckisdat?" creatures I've ever seen. If I saw this thing on a "Extraterrestrial Life Found." programme, I wouldn't be surprised.
Did not have a clue what it is/was and neither had he and he's a First Year Marine Sciences student. We did later find out what they were but I've forgotten already. |
OK, here's the "whaddafuckisdat". (the white thing, not the yellow & blue thing - that's me). I now understand that it's a pelagic colonial (or communal) seasquirt. The white tissue was crisscrossed with tiny cavities, on a grid pattern, each of which contained a wee beastie. These things are normally found way out in the Pacific and can grow from 10-20M in length, so big, that a diver can actually enter and swim around inside. Believe it or not, these things are technically plankton.
Tasmania sticks out into deep water, so a lot of oceanic creatures, like whales and giant squid run aground here.
This shot shows a pair of salps; we normally see these as chains of 10-20 individuals but something had evidently broken these things apart.
We saw many of these in the plankton bloom in Oct-Dec, but those were much smaller, a chain of individuals being only 150mm or so long and almost completely translucent.
Edit: I've just found out that the creature fraudulently claimed by Frosty (below) as one of his discarded French Ticklers (no doubt thrown away because it was uncomfortably tight eh Frosty?), is in fact a Pyrosome.
Found some info on them here:
Mar-Eco - Unusual sampler catches unusual creatures
If you scroll down to the end, there's a close up of the little critters which comprise the colony.