See Thru Mystery

[KelnKelp]

Hey Everyone! On a recent dive off the Oil Rig Eureka in Long Beach, this guy floated through. It moved slowly by waving the "upper fin" back and forth. I have no idea what it is but would love to find out. Any help?! Thanks!


http://photobucket[dot]com/albums/v142/GinnyS/questionablecreature.jpg

 

[Rick Murchison]

Approximate size?
Depth?
Looks larval, but ... ?
There's just no end to marvelous critters out there
Rick
The link appears to be unstable, so I've downloaded your picture and uploaded it here on SB...

 

[GoAnywherePhoto]

The end on the right side of the pic looks an aweful lot like the tail portion of a squid. There also looks to be a couple of eyes starting to develop on other end and squid do have very large and prominent eyes. Plus squid are pretty common out there. Perhaps this is a larval squid that hasn't yet begun to sprout tenticles?

Approximate size and derection of movement (left to right or right to left) could be helpful info.

 

[smellzlikefish]

Reef squid hatch out looking like their parents, I would suspect most other squid do too. However I don't have any better ideas.

 

[KelnKelp]

I want to say it was about a foot long... for movement I have a video on youtube...but again, i'm not allowed to post links...anyone want to help like they did with my original post?



there were a bunch of Salp colonies around on that dive, so my thought was something related to them, but I have no idea...doesn't really look like any salp i've seen.

 

[smellzlikefish]

YouTube - Oil Rig Eureka.mov

 

[Rick Murchison]

Wow!
That's one strange critter!
Those do look like eyespots... if it had more color I'd think some kind of free-swimming slug, but I've never seen one so clear.
?????????????????
Rick

 

[LeslieH]

Hi guys - Rick emailed me about this one. It's a pelagic snail that's actually fairly common. In our area it's probably Carinaria japonica. More info here - Carinaria japonica

 

[Rick Murchison]

Thanks Leslie.
Your font of information is bottomless!

Rick

 

[KelnKelp]

FANTASTIC! Leslie and rick, thanks so much!!