Another wonder of Mother Nature.

[Amphibious]

It simply amazes me when I “discover” a hitchhiker in one of my systems. Anyone want to take a guess as to what made this structure of wonder?

[CarmieJo]

A tube worm?

[Amphibious]

Ha ha ha, that’s an obvious guess and a close one. Can you narrow it down?

[SaltyDawg]

Eunicid maybe? Just a guess.

[CarmieJo]

I don't know. The grains are so nicely aligned that it looks like a mason did it!

[Amphibious]

Got some pics of him digging to rebury himself. Wanted you guys to discuss the structure first. That’s my way of being the teacher I always wanted to be. Here’s a couple of more pics.



He has a bulldozer like head he uses for pushing sand into piles.



Then, when he has a pile...



he twists his body to one side and pushes it away.

Slowly he...



buries himself. I haven’t seen him since these pictures were taken a few days ago. He’s one of those cool critters that stay hidden but performs his duty under the sand surface. His housing is about 2 1/2” in length.

Did a search this morning. I found it belongs to the Pectinaria family.

A neat critter for sure.

[CarmieJo]

Thanks Dick! Here is a website with more information http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.p...ails&id=129437. If you click on the species names there is a lot more information about each.

[Mostly Rock]

I think it's a Pectinaria koreni, I found a lot of pics of that subspecies that matched up really well with Dick's photos. I would love to meet a human that built a structure with such precision and attention to detail!