Photos / Sounds

What

Basket-top Spaghetti Worm (Pista elongata)

Observer

jeffgoddard

Date

December 22, 2018 02:59 PM PST

Description

Forms dense aggregations of shell-incrusted tubes about 5 mm diameter in sandy sediments on top of and between rocks in wave-protected, low intertidal habitat.

3rd image: hood of tube.
4th image: feeding tentacles extending from hood.
5th image: worm removed from tube (tube as shown 121 mm long, but probably missing part of posterior end)
6th image: close-up of worm
7th image: worm in MgCl2
8th image: detail of gills

Images 3-8 of worm collected from same locality on 20 January 2019.

Photos / Sounds

What

Bluebottle (Physalia physalis)

Observer

loudebeuzeville

Date

December 29, 2018 02:15 PM AEST

Description

Quite small, diametre of maybe 1cm, several of them, near lots of dried up blue bottles and same colour as tentacles, but didn't seem to be tentacles. It didn't sting. Was soft. Wondered if it was some type of slug with spherical cerata?? or a tunicate? I have no idea.

Photos / Sounds

What

Black-and-gold Sapsucking Slug (Cyerce nigricans)

Observer

ianhutton

Date

January 1, 2017 05:25 PM AEDT

Description

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Photos / Sounds

What

Waitakere Firedot Lichen (Caloplaca allanii)

Observer

pjd1

Date

October 26, 2012

Description

Saxicolous on coastal andesitic conglomerate rocks subject to salt spray. Thallus granular; minutely subsquamulose or lacking, in irregular patches; granules 0.2–0.5 mm diameter; golden yellow to orange-white, K+ reddish purple, rounded to irregular, convex or plane, with apparent brown-black basal prothallus. Apothecia scattered and rounded to clustered and contorted through mutual pressure, 0.1–1.2 mm diameter; disc subconcave to plane; orange-brown-red-brown; thalline margin continuous or of scattered granules, thin or occasionally thick, same colour as thallus, proper margin thin or thick, raised and orange, paler than disc. Epithecium yellow-orange, densely granular, 8–25 μm thick. Hymenium colourless, without oil droplets, 60–80 μm tall.Paraphyses slender, 1.5 μm wide, apices submoniliform, swollen, to 5 μm diameter. Asci clavate or cylindrical-clavate, 45–70 × 12–23 μm, eight-spored. Ascospores biseriate in ascus, ellipsoid,
12.00–26.25 × 5.0–10.0 μm wide; septum 3.0–7.5 μm, one-quarter to one-third the length of the spore. Description from Sparks et al. 2014 (Notes on Caloplaca allanii Zahlbr. (Teloschistaceae) a poorly known West Auckland, North Island, New Zealand endemic, New Zealand Journal of Botany 52: 304-308).

Photos / Sounds

What

Chorus Cicada (Amphipsalta zelandica)

Observer

beckycasale

Date

February 10, 2017 10:20 AM +13