sand spoking worm; surf grass w/eggs

titled edited 2006/3/3 in light of this previous thread: http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=12161

these were taken at recreational depths in southern california, with a 67mm wet mount style home made lense on 5050/pt015/HIDs and F810/FX701/LEDs. the 67mm adapter for the FX701 is also home made.

Wow! Subjects look very small, what's the magnification? Nice shots...

Hi Mike - I'm really glad to see your posts here & on the Sea Slug Forum. Looks like your home made lenses are working well. Do you have any shots of the polychaete tube that show the animal? I'd like to figure out who lives there.

Cheers, Leslie

rec depths, costal california, different dive, poor focus

You may think they're in poor focus but they're great shots to me! The first one I was pretty sure was a terebellid polychaete, Lanice sp. (undescribed) because of the lobed area at the base of the rays and the rays consisting of single sand grains fitted together. These last two are definitely Praxillura maculata, a maldanid (= bamboo worm) polychaete. In your pics it's grazing, picking off food particles from the mucus strands it strings between the rays. It will take sand grains from the web & incorporate them into the tube. You can see how the tube construction is different from the Lanice tube - the grains are smaller & closely cemented together, there's no lobe at the base of the rays, the rays come directly off the tube mouth, and the rays are made of multiple layers of sand grains.

Thanks so much for posting these.

L