What is this bulbous/knobby critter/slug/?

[cleomagic]

We were on a night dive in Palau last week and we came across this thing. We and the entire dive boat and crew poured through the dive ID books, and could not find anything like it.

It looked like a cross between a water balloon and an underwater mine. It is about 4 inches long and 2 inches tall. Not shown in the picture is it had a foot it used to move.

Does anyone know what this is?



If this is an new underwater species, then do we get to name it?

 

[Quero]

It looks like a type of cowrie to me. I'll try to look it up.

---------- Post added June 9th, 2013 at 01:05 PM ----------

Yep. It's a cowrie. Talparia talpa ​to be exact. Common name: Mole cowrie.

(Hehehe. An SB post served to solve in six minutes what an entire dive boat and its marine life library failed to identify. Yay for SB!)

 

[cleomagic]

Ha ha! Thank you so much! Darn, we were hoping to name it mikeous mineous (squishy, for short). We are really excited knowing now what we are looking at. Here is a link to Wikipedia that at least shows a picture of the shell underneath

File:Cypraea talpa (alive).jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia





Now, we wish we had touched it to see it retract and see the shell underneath. Unfortunately our motto is no-touch

 

[Quero]

It was a good find. Though they have a fairly large distribution, they aren't exactly common. Congrats!

 

[TSandM]

That's really cool! I would never have realized it was the mantle giving it that peculiar texture. Thanks for posting this!