Saturday, January 31, 2015

Lettuce and cucumber

Sounds like a salad right?  Of course, I'm posting photos of sea life, so the lettuce becomes the lettuce sea slug and the cucumber becomes the three-rowed sea cucumber.

This morning, I found this lettuce sea slug crawling on a dead coral structure at a depth of about 20 feet.  It was a little over an inch long.  From a distance, they are easy to overlook.  However, up close, they are delicate little organisms.
 

The lettuce sea slug is heading down in this photo

The two tentacles stick out ahead of the body

It turned around, and is now heading up the coral rock

The elaborate skin ruffles are used to absorb oxygen through the skin

The three-rowed sea cucumber is quite a bit larger than the lettuce sea slug.  This one was about 10 inches long.  They don't move very fast and aren't much of a challenge to locate or photograph.  This photo was taken at a depth of about 20 feet.  It is heading towards the right.


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