| Photo - click to enlarge | Scientific name |
Common name |
Comments |
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Pagurus spp. | Hermit crab | There are at least a half-dozen species locally, varying widely in size. Good aquarium addition but provide a wide size range of empty shells. |
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Green striped hermit crab | Usually makes its home in an abandoned tulip snail shell. | |
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Petrochiaus drogenes | Red hermit crab | The largest hermit crab in this area. Uses large whelks and conks as its home. |
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Balanus
amphitrite + Balanus eburneus |
Striped
barnacle
Ivory barnacle |
Light purple
ventral stripe. Often found on red mangrove reefs. All white, conicl, to an inch high
|
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Lironeca ovalis | Gill louse (juvenile) | Free swimming as juvenile. As it ages it becomes parasitic on fish gills. |
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Gammarid amphipods | No common name | There are at least 50 species in Sarasota Bay. Young differ from adults only in size, i.e. they have no free-living larval stages. Most are herbivorous, living on macro algae. Fish are a major predator. These species are under an inch in length. |
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Nephila clavipes |
Golden-silk
spider |
(Note: The female, as shown here, can grow to over 3 inches long.) |
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Gasteracantha cancriformis |
Crab-like
spiny orb weaver |
A small (3/8
inch) spider with a crab-like body that is white with black spots
and six red protruding spikes. Common in mangroves. |
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Aurelia aurita | Moon jelly |
Dish sized adults best identified by the prominent teardrop ( “double eight") shaped gonads. Their sting is mild. At sea, they often occur in groups of several hundred rather than scattered over a wide area. They are unusually abundant in Sarasota Bay this year (2007).
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| Cassiopeia spp. | Upside-down jelly | Usually found in shallow, clear water where they settle upside down. This exposes their tissues to sunlight, which are filled with phytoplankton that convert waste products back into food. | |
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Chrysaora quinquecirrha | Sea nettle | Has two forms. This, the larger, to 7 1/2" in diameter, has 16 red, radiating bars. Don't touch it; it stings. |
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Euapta lappa | Beaded sea cucumber |
A
mud flat crawler who ingests mud and extracts food from small
organisms
|
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Isostichopus badionotus | Three-rowed sea cucumber (ventral view) | The rows of tube-feet are the main identifying feature of this large sea cucumber. |
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Isostichopus badionotus | Three-rowed sea cucumber (dorsal view) | Although warty, the size of the warts and coloration can vary enormously. specimen shown is just under a foot in length. |
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Holothuria arenicola | Burrowing sea cucumber |
Lives in sand or sandy mud, often in grass beds. Can grow to ten
inches long. Usually either two long brown blotches down the body or
brown spotted. The two examples show the “bumpy”skin. |
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Burrowing sea cucumber |