Hard Translucent Blob - is it alive?

[WhatsReef]

Sorry for the out of focus photos, I have a Galaxy S5. I figured they'd be enough to tell. Found it in my chaeto ball from LFS. I thought it was just a blob of goo of some kind but it's very firm. What is it?

[RayWhisperer]

Look, this is an odd one. Ut could be some type of clear sea potatoe. Bostrichobranchus species. They normally live buried in sand and incorporate the sand into their flesh. So, finding an image of one clear like yours would be unlikely.  Understand, this is not a positive ID, this is just a first suggestion. 

[RayWhisperer]

Keep an eye on it, if you can, for a tube with feeding "tentacles". Thatll be a pretty good indication of what it is. This is a different species of clear sea potato, not yours. But you can see the pointed end. That's where the feeders will extend from.

 

[WhatsReef]

Nice! Yeah it is definitely really similar to that. I read your first post earlier and just quickly google sea potato and my initial thought was you were not on the right track, but I think you got it man. I will research it a little more and maybe release it into my display area.

 

I've just left it stuck to the chaeto in the back of my AOI figuring whatever the hell it was it'd get plenty of food flowing by it there anyways. I will try to get a better photo of it too and will post it here if I do.

[WhatsReef]

Just took a close look at it and two crater-like holes are visible on the top, one about twice the diameter of the other. So a bivalve of some kind I reckon. Might be hard to catch in a photo, but better photos soon.

[WhatsReef]

[alpinestar]

Alien egg for suuuuure. Future archeologists will find this post thousands of years later when studying the fall of mankind.

[RayWhisperer]

Well, with two holes, it could be a sea squirt/tunicate. That would be my next guess, but the two holes don’t look very tunicate like to me.  Granted, that means nothing, as there are thousands of types of tunicates.

[WhatsReef]

Interesting. I guess if a fish gets a really bad cut in the ocean the sturgeon puts a tunicate on it to stop the bleeding. Is that how they work?

[RayWhisperer]

Sturgeon, surgeon, tunicate, tourniquet, potato, potatoe. It's all just words.

[RayWhisperer]

But looky what I've found. It's a pretty good match, I think, given the siphons you pointed out. It's a Molgula species tunicate. Yours looks fairly similar to some I've found. In fact, Molgula manhattensis is quite similar, right down to the visible gonads. External body structure is a bit different. But that could be due to conditions it grew in.

[RayWhisperer]

[RayWhisperer]

Stupid post screw up. Both pics were supposed to be on one post. Plus, I've got another one I think you'll be able to use for an ID. Lemme find it. These are all M. manhattensis. I'm not sure you've even got a Molgula species, but it seems like a good match. If you do have a Molgula, it may, or may not be manhattensis. I'd bet not, in fact. But these pics with the drawing should give you some visual markers to look for.

[WhatsReef]

The basic structure definitely looks like that, down to how the internal organs seem to look. The thing is that it is much more of a flat shape, but I guess that doesn't necessarily disqualify it as it could have grown smashed between things or something. But on the other had it's definitely very flat and shaped more like a cockroach than a round ball like this one. Also the tubes seem relatively short compared to those tubes - more like craters in the body than actual tubes with any real length.

 

But I think you may be correct that it's a tunicate and possible Molgula.

[RayWhisperer]

As I said, these are all M. manhattensis. Yours may be a different species, or it may have morphed due to current, or as you said, space constraints. Even the first pic is M. manhattensis, and that has no tubes whatsoever. I dont know what dictates the form of these animals. It could even be simply geographic variants. Sometimes an animal from one area looks completely different from the same species in another area.

[WhatsReef]

Well at the end of the day, I just hope it gets bigger and bigger and eventually shoots a tentacle out of the tank and down my throat when I'm looking down into it and it makes a copy of me like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Or hopefully it will at least start communicating with me telepathically once it reaches the size of a basketball and begins to increase exponentially in complexity.