What's this?

[geridoc]

Almost 40 years in this hobby, and this morning I found something new going into/coming out of/living on my 3 year old duncan. Does anybody have any idea what's going on here? It is in the oral disk of one of the polyps. All of the other polyps are completely normal.

 

[bang guy]

Looks like some type of commensal Shrimp. Very interesting!

 

[geridoc]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bang Guy http:///t/395324/whats-this#post_3519330
Looks like some type of commensal Shrimp. Very interesting!
At first I thought it might me one of my peppermint shrimp, but there are just too many appendages.

 

[meowzer]

HMMMM....How cool

 

[snakeblitz33]

Definitely crustacean like. Possible barnicle? I had one in the middle of my galaxea one time.

 

[geridoc]

Whatever it is/was, it literally fell apart during the past hour. Here is the same polyp, now:

 

[bang guy]

Is it possible the coral ate a Shrimp molt?

 

[siptang]

Looks like a shrimp molt. Before plate coral did it to my shrimp molt.

 

[snakeblitz33]

Now im thinking shrimp molt too.

 

[geridoc]

You guys may be right about the shrimp molt. It disintegrated just the way a shrimp molt does when disturbed. Nevertheless, it was an interesting event in an otherwise pretty boring day. One of the invertebrate zoologist s in my department suggested that aliens were trying to establish contact with the only organism showing signs of intelligence in our university - a coral:rotfl:

 

[snakeblitz33]

LOL
I wouldn't doubt it at this point.