What is this!

[mvergas]

So about 4 months ago i noticed this little spec of an organism on one of my rocks and i could not tell what it was as it was so small. So i moved it in to the light and have been watching it grow for quite some time now. Well it is much bigger now(3" diameter) and I still have no idea what it is. i figure it has to be some kind of anemone as it has a foot and shrinks and expands to its full sized just like one. Can anyone please identify this for me? thanks

[FireEater]

Looks like a Frogspawn head to me.

[scubadude]

I say either a torch or possibly a frogspawn....does it have a hard base? I dunno....Marks eyes may be better than mine

[zhenya]

i figure it has to be some kind of anemone as it has a foot and shrinks and expands to its full sized just like one.

It could be one of the Euphyllids but it also could be some type of anemone. I think better images are needed, the base of the animal if possible.
Corals too can expand and contract it's polyps and size of the polyps varies.

[mvergas]

ok, i managed to get a good pic of what i consider to be the foot of this guy, and below it is the picture of it completely extended.

The Foot




open

[zhenya]

Well, it is definately not an anemone. Most likely one of the Euphyllids, like the Euphyllia glabrecsens, for example, that scubadude had mentioned already.
It looks to me that what you consider to be a foot is simply encrusting point, where coral made contact with the substrate and what you see is a tissue that is grown over the skeleton that is formed and continues to grow outward.
It is a juvenile coral that you watched progress to what you see today.

On a side note, can you touch the base of it and see if you can feel the skeleton through the tissue? But please, be gentle with it and try not to rub it or squish it oo hard.

[mvergas]

well I think that I might have found a positive ID on this..... here is a recent picture of this guy, and it has really exploded in size over the past few months.
I am quite sure that this is a heliofungia actiniformis, it looks pretty much the same as this: Poppe Images - Marine Iconography in the Philippines