I collected this species along the boulders near the coral area. so i have the doubt whether it may be a coral. just try to identify this specimen.
Dear Nandha,
the resolution of the picture is not very high, so going into deeper ID might be difficult. However, as far as I can tell, I would say that you took a photograph of an ascidian colony. Maybe other people can help out when you provide the sampling region and water depth.
Christian
Does the colony we are looking at have a hard calcareous skeleton under what appear to be expanded polyps?
can i suggest that anyone with pictures of things they want identifed can post them on the iNaturalist website (or in new zealand - naturewatch.org.nz ). a great way to get crowd-sourced names and add to the sum total of biological knowledge out there :-)
Looks like a type of Ascidiacea also known as sea squirts. They have two siphons oral siphon that takes in water and atrial siphon from which the water exits. You can clearly see them on the photo.
It looks like ascidian colony similar to this http://www.julianrocks.net/Sessile2/SessilePics/Polycitor5177.jpg
Was the colony soft or hard (calcified)? If soft, I would guess ascidian. If hard, perhaps a bryozoan? If soft overlying hard, it could be a coral. If it is an ascidian, it is highly unlikely you will be able to identify it from a photo. The following website has instructions for preserving ascidians for morphological identification: http://woodshole.er.usgs.gov/project-pages/stellwagen/didemnum/htm/page41.htm
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Methodology
- Research Methodology
- Research Papers