Can anyone tell me what this is?

I have dove mainly in Tropical waters and recently went to Monterey without doing to much research on the local sealife. This "thing" swam or floated by and I want to know what it is. As you can tell the water was not very clear....huge surge that day. Thanks!

I think the ID experts here will tell you it is a salp.

Cheers

James Wiseman

Look like Tunicates to me.

Salps are tunicates, but a specific free floating class (or suborder, cant remember). the species in the picture is not a single individual, but a colony of salps side by side.

googling salp salpae with or without in combination with monterey might be very educational on the composition and behaviour of this species group :-)

Gerard

Well this was not the only one! There were about seven of these strands as I could see, all floating in about 30 feet, Strange looking to me. Here's another look. Thanks again!

They are indeed salps. If you dive the oil platforms during spring, there are a bazillion shapes and sizes drifting around.

Joe

At least one so-called expert disagrees. I think these are the trailing portions of siphonophores, members of the class Hydrozoa, phylum Cnidaria. Normally they have swimming bells or gas-filled floats at one end followed by a long trailing section of multiple identifical units each possessing a tentacle covered with stinging cells. The portuguese man of war, Physalia physalis, is another type of siphonophore.