sand-clad polychaetes on an orange sponge

Thanks to Judy for the ID.

Leslie -- these are for you. They're from Rajah Ampat, at the dive site, Tempat Lego, near Wajag.

They are definately living in tubes, so that is pretty cool to see them living like that. I wonder if they just use their mucus to catch suspended sand particles to build the tubes. Interesting.

Joe

Eric,

Do you remember these from your "live rock" days? You could sometimes see the two tentacles and the tube sticking out of tiny crevices and holes in the rock.

Cheers

James

These guys use a combination of suspension feeding (sweeping their feeding palps through the water to pick up particles) & deposite feeding (picking up particles from the surface of the sponge). The feeding palps are gooved & lined with cilia which carry the food & silt down to the mouth. Gut analysis has shown that at least one species may feed on its host sponge. The tube builders may benefit their host sponges by keeping it clean when they pick up silt grains to build their tubes.

I wouldn't be so quick to call these Polydorella prolifera. There are now 5 described species in the genus and possibly one or more undescribed ones. I can't see any of the species characters in these images so I'd leave them as Polydorella sp.

For a previous thread on Polydorella see http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=5734&st=0