Gulf Mystery Creature

Factual Questions
1

Can anyone identify this thing?

Last week we vacationed in southern Florida on the Gulf of Mexico. While swimming I saw the freakiest creature and have been searching Google Images trying to find anything similar.

It was brown and cream striped, with small stripes but I don’t believe the stripes were continuous, it had a broken stripe affect. It was flat like a skate or ray but swam by sweeping it’s side flaps up and down so far they almost met over and under it’s body making it look like a tube. It’s surface didn’t look smooth, it almost looked like it had little ridges over it’s entire body. It wasn’t stiff looking like most skates or rays, it looked very soft and floppy.

We also saw leaves floating everywhere and underneath almost every leaf was a tiny creature hanging onto the leaf that had a similar stripe pattern and colors as the big creature. I don’t think they seemed shaped the same but the color and pattern were so close I thought I should mention them.

The leaf hangers were less than a 1/2 inch long. The other thing was about 16 inches across and 10 inches long.

2

I’m going to guess one of the many varieties of nudibranch – here’s a lengthy list of color photos, did it look like one of these?

3

A Cuttlefish perhaps?

4

Seconding a bet on nudibranch, they are really cool looking.

5

Another suggestion of nudibranch.

6

How big was the swimming creature? Did it otherwise look like a skate or ray? Did it have a tail? What shape was it?

For the leaf-clingers, could they have been Sargassum Fish?

7

Thanks everyone. All of your ideas led me to a movie of what it looked quite a bit like: http://wn.com/sea_hare Go to “Strange Sea Critter”, on the right. The one I saw was much larger and had different markings but looks almost identical otherwise. So, it is a nudibranch, those have so much variety.

Disgusting, all the things in the water with us when we’re swimming. I’m glad I saw it before it touched me.

8

Of course, you know WC Fields’ explanation for why he didn’t drink water, right? Because fish F*** in it

9

I wonder if the Nudibranch said the exact same thing to Mrs. Nudibranch when he got home that evening. :smiley: