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Old 04-05-2007, 01:56 AM
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untamed untamed is offline
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Default Bizarre creature found...

I was doing a bit of gardening on this unusual coral (I still have no id on this, but I suspect it is a type of gorgonian). You can see in the photo below that the coral has some sort of hairy red algae growing in/on it. I was in the process of carefully tweezing that stuff out of there with 2 foot tongs when I found...it...

First, on the extreme left side of the following picture, on the tips of the branches...you can see white blobs. Those are nudibranchs of some kind. It turns out that there are probably 10+ of them on this particular coral. (unfortunately, I suspect they are killing the coral...but we'll see)



But have a closer look at that photo. Look directly in the centre. There is a highly disguised ______? (crab?) It has 8 long legs, and no perceivable body. (sea spider would be a good description)

Here's a close up for the hard of seeing....


OK, confirmed that this is a sea spider. Here is an excellent article about them.
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-01/rs/index.php
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400 gal reef. Established April, 2007. 3 Sequence Dart, RM12-4 skimmer, 2 x OM4Ways, Yellow Tang, Maroon Clown (pair), Blonde Naso Tang, Vlamingi Tang, Foxface Rabbit, Unicorn Tang, 2 Pakistani Butterflies and a few coral gobies

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Last edited by untamed; 04-05-2007 at 03:24 AM.
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