[smidoid]

Well this is an odd liddle thing! It came welded on some LR and I thought it was, welll, dead - until it snapped shut on the pipette! There are also some things on the same slab that have been IDed as dendrophyllia (I thought they were Sun coral!).

It's about the size and shape of 1/2 of a coffee bean and appears to have a mouth and guts like a tunicate... beyond that, it's .... uh....

As Poseiden will note, there's a fair bit of noise in the image - that's due to my pathetic attempt at boosting the shutter speed by boosting the ISO!:slap:

Over to you!

[Poseidon]

Boy oh Boy Marc, my first though after looking at the picture was sponge, but reading your description throws that theory out the window.

Try underexposing by a stop or so to increase shutter speed, and then bump up in post. The highlights are a little hot, maybe more detail can be seen on a darker image.

My guess is Gene (Zhenya), or Ninong will have an ID for you.

[optical]

possibly a Cirolanid Isopod. could be parasitic though and latch onto your fish! just a noob guess though, could be way off.

[smidoid]

As Mike suggested, here it is reprocessed.

For the photographers out there, this is AS SHOT (1/30 @ f8.0) in RAW w/o using the auto-adjustments in the loader. I've pulled the highlights up a little using levels, but not so they are blown out and that's it.

[smidoid]

Originally Posted by optical

possibly a Cirolanid Isopod. could be parasitic though and latch onto your fish! just a noob guess though, could be way off.

I'll get shot for saying this (!) but even when we're wrong we can all learn from the mistake - you get nothing in this game for not trying. Hell, I'm probably wrong a good bit of the time, but as long as we don't try to appear definitive, then someone else will hopefully correct it. Ninong and I have had some fun with this over my use (and his) of English since we're both keen pedants with a love of language. (Currently, he's way in the lead since he's beating me in other languages now!)

This:

http://www.tamug.edu/cavebiology/fau...ides-photo.jpg

is an Arubolana aruboides: cirolanid isopod (apparently!) . The smart fellas like Dr Ron, Ninong and Zhenya will be able to confirm

[optical]

dang! wrong again... i thought it was one because of the sectional plates on the body.

[smidoid]

A man who never made a mistake never made anything; and I've made a lot of things!

[zhenya]

Marc,
The critter in your image is definately not a Cirolanid. Most likely not even an isopod.
Could you take couple more images from different angles? another option would be to gently remove it into a shallow dish with water and take images then. As it is right now I haven;t a clue what this is.

To see more images of isopos, check Dr.Shimek's article about them here

And you can also check some pictures of various isopods by clicking on the links within article found here

[smidoid]

I'll try Gene, but in the meatime think coffee bean sliced along its length. It really does look almost exactly like that.

[Poseidon]

WOW! THat was f8??? Judging by the DOF I was guessing 4 or 2.8! That macro is VERY Narrow on DOF!!!!

I agree with Gene, can you get a shot of the belly? Where are the mouth parts? Legs or no legs?

[smidoid]

Yeah! Tell me about it! I don't think the tank glass helps a lot and my shaking hand doesn't help much either.

I've hoisted the slab vertical so I can get an overhead view, but there's not much to see. That was a VERY live bit of rock though - only a few inches by a few inches, but I just noticed what looks like a "chicken liver" on the flipside!

As for legs, it ain't got any! It's stuck to the slab.

Here's a shot with the mouth (!?) and anus (!?) ringed. The "shell" is hard to the touch a bit like a typical bi-valve which I'm sure it isn't.

We need Ron "Sherlock" Shimek on this one!

[Reefland]

Uhh, where's the new shot at?

[smidoid]

Sorry Scott. My fault entirely... Wife screaming at me stopped play! It's there now and I'm fixing the gear for another shot.

[greenbean36191]

Don't second guess yourself so much. It is a bivalve, it's just partially bored into the rock. It's probabaly some sort of arc shell.

[smidoid]

Really? That makes sense! How does it get stuck in a rock like that? And can you elaborate a bit please.

[greenbean36191]

Burrowing into rock is a pretty common strategy for bivalves. Usually they find a small indentation to settle into as juveniles and then grind the rock away with their shells as they grow, sometimes with the help of acidic secretions. For lots of species they live so deeply within the rock that only the siphons are visible.

[smidoid]

Well that's wacky and totally amazing... I spent years hunting around temperate rockpools as a kid and I never saw such a thing (not that surprising really I guess - they were probably out-competed by muscles and/or killed off by pollutants in the North Sea.

I wonder if it's possible to feed this thing...?