Tiny orange crustaceans on sponges, etc.

Art -

Which ones are we talking about now? The little orange ones? Or are all of the photos that have been posted the same species? (forget it. i just took a look back at the three photos, and they all look the same).

I've been forwarding stuff to the wakatobi folks, so they can confuse their next set of guests when someone asks "what the little orange things are."

I care, Art! About a year & a half ago I was contacted by Dr Niels Lindquist (UNC, North Carolina) for information on the same image of a Caribbean isopod that you posted earlier:

<http://www.nhm.org/guana/bvi-invt/bvi-surv...i04/h0705ax.htm> and which is a Santia. Niels mentioned he was working on other Santia from the Indo-Pacific. I found out today that at least some of his specimens belong to the genus Uromunna and these look much closer to Eric's little orange guys than my Santia. See http://oeb.harvard.edu/palumbi/people%20pa...ul_isopods.html

The really neat thing about these guys - both Caribbean & Indo-Pacific - is that they're covered with a layer of symbiotic cyanobacteria. That's the fluffy orange stuff in Eric's image & the red spheres in mine. The cyanobacteria provide a chemical defense to the little critters, allowing the isopods to freely move about without being eaten by predators. Apparently the isopods eat it as well which would make their flesh as nasty tasting as the cyanobacteria itself.

Cheers, Leslie

Thanks for the interesting information, Leslie!

Here is the image I sent you earlier (for WP viewers). The link you posted doesn't seem to be resolving.

Here's the addresses again--

Uromunna from the Indo-Pacific

http://www.oeb.harvard.edu/palumbi/people%...ul_isopods.html

Santia from the Caribbean

http://www.nhm.org/guana/bvi-invt/bvi-surv...i04/h0705ax.htm

If you look at the main isopod page the name Santia milleri is under the wrong image; it should be moved down one.

Leslie

Very interesting! I was wondering why the little guys weren't getting snapped up by fish.

Unfortunately, we lost most of the old images during the forum migration earlier this year. The last message Leslie posted has good images of these guys. Anyone else have some to post for us?

Hi Eric,

I first noticed the critters you mention in Manado in 2003. Since then, I've seen them in lots of places in Malaysia and Indonesia.

I've got a couple of pictures to share. Unfortunately, I never seem to have the right lens when I spot these guys.

On the second photo, you can just make out one of them carrying small juveniles (?) on its back.

Cheers,

Mat

Very cool and very nice pictures. I'll pass around the second one to the pod people & see what they say about the juveniles. Other arthropods carry around their young - having this documented for an isopod would really be nifty!

Eric, the orange things are Santia. The things I got wrong on the first disc were not orange themselves. They were sand-clad polychaete worms scattered on an orange sponge. Judy

The polychaete worms in the sand grain tube are Polydorella prolifera. They arrange themselves over the entire surface of the sponge so that they are tentacle-length distance apart. Your one photo shows them perched on the sea-edge of the sponge with their tentacles plying the plankton flows. Judy

Judy -

sand-clad polychaetes on an orange sponge? PLEASE POST!!

When I went on the Bilikiki to the Solomon Islands in 1991, the Santia isopods were on every little organism, even the plankton that I had collected in a peanut-butter jar on a night dive by putting my flashlight against the bottom of the jar. Boy, it filled right up. I had brought my microscope and my photo adapter attachment for my Pentax camera, on the trip. Nothing like traveling light! Judy

Leslie,

I have the photo ready to post. I just resampled it to reduce size and hopefully it will post. This is also one of Eric Cheng's photos from Rajah Ampat. Judy

Thanks, Judy. I dearly love to see good worm photos. Obviously Eric has been holding out on me!

He has not been holding out on you. These are brand new and there are a lot more. Maybe you can 'worm' them out of him. Judy

Judy has been helping me ID animals from Rajah Ampat before they go online. It's been 9 months, and clearly, I'm a slacker.

I'll post a high(er) res version in a different thread. Let's get these on their own thread!

You sent worm pictures to another woman? I'm crushed....

hehehe. Well, there was the added benefit of having a couple hundred images ID'ed, on the side.

Tell the truth, I can take it.... does she have bigger guide books? Younger books? Prettier pictures?

Never mind. I see you've posted more worm pictures in a new thread. All is forgiven!

Hi Leslie,

Believe me, I have the oldest books on the planet. I had no idea you were so possessive of worm photos. Here's one for you. I was looking at this Dendronephthya and realized there was a polychaete worm wrapped around a branch: my guess is that it is Odontosyllis sp.

I took this at Albatross Pass near Three Island Harbor just north-west of Kavieng, in PNG.

Regards, Judy