Flatworms under lip of leather corals

In Papua New Guinea last month, I noticed sticky filaments extending out from polyp-withdrawn leather corals at night. The filaments would retract after capturing the critters attracted to my dive lights. Upon closed inspection, I found many little flatworm-like animals hiding under the lip of the coral. They are orange or red spotted.

Saw quite a few of these while in Kavieng. Any ideas on what they are? Here are some photos:

Hi Eric,

The filaments that extend from Sarchophyton sp corals are usually sessile ctenophores.

Pretty cool, eh? They also have a lot of flatworms that like to hang out there too.

Cheers

James

Oh, these are so cool! Great photos! They're bizarre cousins of the pelagic comb jellies, benthic ctenophores known as the platyctenes. Like their free-swimming relatives they have 2 retractable tentacles which are used to capture food. I saw my first one in the BVI a couple of years ago & have been looking for more ever since.