Identify these sea creatures?

Ok, tdn, lets do this. Look at my 1st & 2nd links- pics of Sea cucumbers. Does #3 look like any of them? Then look at my last link- this lists just about every common sea animal you might see. Which did #3 look most like?

None of them. It most looked like this, but only in the way that Portia DiRossi looks like Charles Durning. What I saw lacked the mottled pattern and opacity of the linked critter.

Oh, and my #2 object most looked like this, only black and fuzzy.

I suspect that what you are actually seeing is a mass of gelatinous or slimy exudate from some plant or animal, not the organism itself. This is based on the thing’s translucency, appearence of being about to disintegrate, the difference in shape between the two that you describe, and lack of movement.

Did these things have any appendages, tube feet, eyes, tentacles, or other discrete features? Or were they featureless and smooth?

Hmm- could be a Sea Cucumber, but it also could be just about anything. Find another and examine it, willya?

Yep, your crab looks like a species of *Loxorhynchus. * They have lots of common names, don’t know which name they go by out there, or even if that’s the exact same genus, we call them “Sheep crab”.

Nope. It doesn’t have any features suggesting it is a sea cucumber, and it has several features (which I have already mentioned) that indicate it is not. One thing it is not is a sea cucumber.

I’m starting to think it might be a sea cucumber.

Why?

Well, the OP picked a pic of a Sea Cucumber as something that it is closest too, but I admit it isn’t a good match. And your two points were that Sea cucumbers weren’t translucent- which they certainly can be- and that they aren’t fragile. But they often look fragile.

Honestly, I am stumped. The description is so vague and covers so many possibles that I am simply unwilling to rule out a whole Class of thousands of extremely highly varied species. I cheerfully admit that it is likely not a Sea Cucumber. But I am not going to rule out the Holothuroidea, until we know more. Could be a Tunicate, could be a Jelly, could be a worm, could be lots if things, even something no longer “alive”.

I also agree that “many summers beachcombing on the northeastern coast of the US” would make you certain that this is not the “Sea Cucumber” you know from the Intertidal region. But this is a diver, who gets deeper.

Until we know more, my mind is open. Maybe it’ll remain a mystery. :confused:

Wrong. He says he was snorkeling. That means he was in relatively shallow water.

I have seen the kind of objects he describes, and they are certainly not sea cucumbers.

Wrong. It’s entirely possible to snorkel in deep water. It’s possible that what I found was 30 feet down. The fact that I was in, oh, maybe 3 feet of water has nothing to do with it. :wink:

I hope to be back at that same beach (or a similar one) this coming weekend. I’ll try to gather a bit more information then. Hopefully I’ll see more of those things.

Although not intertidal, 30 feet is not “deep water.” You are not normally be going to be finding any exotic deep-sea animals there.

For #3, I’m gonna go with tube worm (in anoxic conditions, they look like piles of crap).

http://www.njscuba.net/biology/sw_plant-like.html#SlimeFanWorm

In fact that whole site (http://www.njscuba.net/biology/) may be of great interest to you. If they’re not tubeworms, check out the other invertebrate pages or even the algae and plants pages.