A very unusual wormy thing!

Not exactly my thing since it's not a polychaete but you get major points for trying! My guess is that it's a solenogaster mollusc in the genus Epimenia. E. australis and E. babai are two species which have pics on the net.

Solenogasters are very odd molluscs which lack a normal shell. Instead, they have spicules in the body wall, look like worms, and in this genus are active predators on cnidarians.

Do you have a larger picture of it? I'd love to see one as I've never seen an Epimeria alive. The species we have here in California are very different. They look like worms covered with stiff silver hair.

Wow! Another fine example of why Leslie is the Queen of critter IDs I have seen plenty of solenogastres but would never have guessed this one from the relatively low-res pic. However, in hind-sight, the bulbous shape of the front region makes her call highly probable.

I can't remember how many times I've stared at the solenogaster pic in Gosliner, Behrens, & Williams & wished to see a live one someday!

Thanks very much for the id, I hope to be heading round Bali again soon with soem friends. I will keep me open for some polychaetes. Is there a site I can check out some more of your loved ones?

Worm sites

The first site - Philippe & Guido Poppe's - is from the Philippines. ReefImages - Elaine Stamman Seger & Douglas Segar - has UW pics from Indonesia, PNG, Philippines, Solomons, Vanatu, etc. #3 has petri dish shots I took in the British Virgin Islands which show off what the animals really look like up close. Identifications are sketchy on the first two and thanks to our web guy some of mine are mislabelled. At least they'll help you develop an eye for what worms look like underwater.

All 3 sites have many more animals than just worms. Again, ids can be sketchy despite the best efforts of everyone involved because it's often so hard to make an id just from an image. There is one exception -- the mollusc ids on the Poppe site are excellent. That's only to be expected because the Poppe's are professional conchologists with years of experience.

http://www.poppe-images.com/images/search_...?category=worms

http://www.reefimages.com/Worms/Worms.htm

http://www.nhm.org/guana/bvi-invt/bvi-surv/worm-tit.htm

Happy hunting!