dubas's Favorites

Caught in the wild and photographed nearby in an aquarium. Bell is 20–25 mm tall.
Note tall, conical aspect of the bell and the gonad extends from nearly the top of the manubrium to the mouth (just a very short section at the top of the long manubrium is without gonad).

Mature adult, about 15 mm tall.
I collected about 50 adults at the nearshore surface of Humboldt Bay at the Woodley Island Marina. These were transported to the laboratory and photographed several days later in an aquarium.

Mature adult, about 15 mm tall.
I collected about 50 adults at the nearshore surface of Humboldt Bay at the Woodley Island Marina. These were transported to the laboratory where I was able to grow the small solitary polyps from spawned eggs and sperm, thus rounding out the life history of this species.

Mills, CE 2000. Sci. Mar. 64 (supl): 97-106.

Recent hatchling of Enteroctopus dofleini, captured at night in the surface plankton and photographed in an aquarium. Total length about 5.5 mm. Date is approximate.

Distinguished from Octopus rubescens because O. rubescens hatchlings have two rows (paired) of chromatophores running down each arm, while E. dofleini hatchlings have a single row of chromatophores running down each arm.

Recent hatchling of Octopus rubescens, captured at night in the surface plankton and photographed in an aquarium. Total length about 6.5 mm. Date is approximate.

Distinguished from Enteroctopus dofleini because O. rubescens hatchlings have two rows (paired) of chromatophores running down each arm, while E. dofleini has a single row of chromatophores running down each arm.

This little-known pelagic ctenophore was collected on a cobble beach in Friday Harbor Washington on May 22, 1989 by two undergraduate invertebrate zoology students. It was 105 mm long and only one of the two tentacles is in a normal position, exiting the body through the tentacle sheath. The other tentacle seems to have entered the gut through a hole in the wall of the pharynx and is seen here as a white streak, complete with sidebranches, inside the pharynx. Photographed in an aquarium.

I collected a much smaller (9 mm long) individual of the same species three weeks later at the surface in Friday Harbor on June 18, 1989.

Note that I have also uploaded the original pen and ink illustration of this species (originally described as Beroe cucumis) by Mertens 1833 at https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/61758194.

A rare find collected wild in Friday Harbor, but this smaller and more fragile Leptomedusa masquerades as just another Clytia gregarium in the spring or early summer. There is a little bit of black around the margin, and I was very surprised that when kept in a bowl for days or weeks, it seems to have reproduced by fission. This probably explains why it has a variable number of radial canals. Photographed in an aquarium. The bell diameter was 10 mm.

Collected by divers in upper 20 m of open ocean and photographed in an aquarium on board the ship. Forskalia siphonophore with lots of hyperiid amphipods on or in the nectophores. Stem and filaments contracted.

Identified at the time by P. Pugh, siphonophore taxonomy specialist.

This little ctenophore is about one cm long, with two very fine, unbranched tentacles. It eats primarily appendicularia. It is never very common, and is difficult to see because it is very transparent. It is usually found here in the spring.

An early spring species about 15 mm in diameter. The gonads and canals look bluish some distance underwater, but up close are always a characteristic pale rose-pink that my camera didn't pick up. The edge sometimes rolls up, as in the second image, or more extremely so. Hand dipped from the surface plankton and photographed in an aquarium.

This tiny, uncommon, more-or-less adult ctenophore was 4 mm long. The four orangy-red pigment spots are diagnostic. It is also unusual because the pair of simple, unbranched tentacles exit near the mouth, not towards the aboral pole like most cydippid ctenophores. Hand-dipped from the surface plankton and photographed in an aquarium.

This 7 mm tall early spring species is pretty much of a look-alike for the more-common Proboscidactyla flavicirrata. I had to look at it under the microscope to see that the four radial canals run straight in this species, with very fine arching branches that reach the tentacle bulbs (see second image). In Proboscidactyla, the radial canals branch dichotomously several times. Hand-dipped at the surface and photographed in an aquarium.

An amazing glass squid. When I disturbed it it would tuck in its tentacles and eyes, and even its fins and show big spots. So cool. The area around the brain was brightly iridescent. There are very faint long tubercles around the mantle if that helps with species id.
Really hard to get nice shots with a compact camera sadly.

~2.5cm long