I think I've got a Ctenophore...what do you think?

[Anonymous]

Anyone know what this might be? It showed up out of nowhere and has been residing on my Trumpet without any noticable effects.

 

[cindre2000]

Since ctenophores are free swimming pelagic creatures, I would seriously question that guess. However, the 'tentacle' does remind most of a ctenophore.

Have you tried removing it or looking more closely at its structure. If you see 'eye's', for example, it might be a flatworm...

 

[pslee]

I don't think that is a Ctenophore. It looks like a Turbellarian of some sort(based on the 2nd pic).

 

[Anonymous]

I base my conclusion on some of the things I found on the web. It seems there is little to no information on these guys. It appears that this one may be a bottom-living variety called Benthic. A bit of what I found:

Benthic (bottom-living) ctenophores

A few ctenophores (those in the order Platyctenida) live on the bottom or in symbiosis on the surfaces of specific plants or animals. Platyctene ctenophores are only found in warm water and are usually only a few cm in diameter. They are planktonic with comb plates only as larvae. After these planktonic larvae settle down, the often brightly-colored benthic adults look more like nudibranchs or flatworms than ctenophores - they are frequently colored similarly to their substrate organism, so that, for instance, a pink or orange sponge or starfish may support pink or orange platyctene ctenophores. These benthic ctenophores have branched tentacles similar to those of cydippid ctenophores and the presence of these expanded tentacles during feeding is often the feature that allows an observer to recognize these organisms as ctenophores.

Here's the link to the article:

http://faculty.washington.edu/cemills/Ctenophores.html

Here's a link to a picture that could be the twin of the one in my tank:

http://www.seaslugforum.net/display.cfm?id=12274

There are definately two feeding tentacles that come out and are very active. They have lots of combs that are attached to one side only. These tentacles don't seem to sting anything around it but they do snare things quite regularly.

Thanks for the input.

 

[pslee]

Wow, I had no idea that there are benthic Ctenophores. What an awesome critter! If you don't mind, can you post more pics of it? Thanks!

 

[Anonymous]

Those are really good pictures!

Here's the best I could manage...mental note for the future, use a flash and turn the lights off!

 

[Anonymous]

Looks like a commensal ctenophore to me. I used to have several that lived in a large Sarcophyton coral.

 

[VegasRick]

Might be a vermetid snail
http://www.reefs.org/library/aquarium_n ... 897_8.html