I think its a worm?

Went out for a night swim and these worms (?) were here and there in the water.

Yeah, that's what I call a worm, all right! It's in the polychaete family Amphinomidae, genus Chloeia, one of the fireworm species. I've seen several images of different Chloeia species swimming so apparently it's fairly common. I assumed that they're swimming in search of prey. Your pictures suggest that they will also swim up into the water column to spawn as your individual is packed full of eggs or sperm. Another interesting thing (for me) is that I haven't seen this species before. Thanks for posting these lovely pics.

Leslie, during the time we were out we probably saw a dozen of these worms and all of them were as fat as this one was.

wow, great photos!

beautiful colors on that worm...and a real worm it is!

was this with your D80/ike housing/dual Ys-110's, and a 60mm lens?

scott

The pictures were taken with a D80 - 60mm Nikor lens - Ikelite housing - single DS 51 strobe and the Nocturnal SLX focus light. Manual at 1/160 and F10.

Chloeias are normally fat. What I'm keying in on is the pink along the sides that's most obvious in the 3rd picture. Those look like eggs. I'd love to see some hi-res files & check for more details.