sarahtweedt's Identifications

Found copious numbers of these lemon yellow 'colonies' during a snorkel off base of cliffs.They were in depths of ~1 m to ~5 m.Attached/anchored directly to rock or to sessile invertebrates and algae coating rocks,mainly along upper edges of ledges and overhangs but some were quite exposed. Color was very consistent.They looked and felt soft but were not at all traumatised by the moderately strong swells, and the most surge-prone areas had as many or more than the more sheltered bits of this shallow subtidal high relief terrain. They were all gone within about a week or three at most(I revisited at least once within that time),so I even had a niggling suspicion they were molluscan egg masses, but zooming always shows typical sponge features.

• OF INTEREST PERHAPS: I've rarely if ever seen this taxon,there or anywhere, in the years since , nor found similar images in books,so now I wonder ,were they an ephemeral seasonal appearance of an introduced/exotic sponge species?? *

At first sight I thought they were either fast-growing ascidians or perhaps peculiar sponges.It turns out they are some type of sponge(Another belated thank you to marine biologist Janine: yet another ID revisit by davemmdave to occupy your time!) Sponges were the obvious phylum all along, but I made hard work of that very basic ID, mainly by letting myself be overly influenced by their very short lifespan. They came and went in such a short time that sponges dropped down my list(assuming -as I also did- that these things had not been there for months prior to my noticing them).

Found copious numbers of these lemon yellow 'colonies' during a snorkel off base of cliffs.They were in depths of ~1 m to ~5 m.Attached/anchored directly to rock or to sessile invertebrates and algae coating rocks,mainly along upper edges of ledges and overhangs but some were quite exposed. Color was very consistent.They looked and felt soft but were not at all traumatised by the moderately strong swells, and the most surge-prone areas had as many or more than the more sheltered bits of this shallow subtidal high relief terrain. They were all gone within about a week or three at most(I revisited at least once within that time),so I even had a niggling suspicion they were molluscan egg masses, but zooming always shows typical sponge features.

• OF INTEREST PERHAPS: I've rarely if ever seen this taxon,there or anywhere, in the years since , nor found similar images in books,so now I wonder ,were they an ephemeral seasonal appearance of an introduced/exotic sponge species?? *

At first sight I thought they were either fast-growing ascidians or perhaps peculiar sponges.It turns out they are some type of sponge(Another belated thank you to marine biologist Janine: yet another ID revisit by davemmdave to occupy your time!) Sponges were the obvious phylum all along, but I made hard work of that very basic ID, mainly by letting myself be overly influenced by their very short lifespan. They came and went in such a short time that sponges dropped down my list(assuming -as I also did- that these things had not been there for months prior to my noticing them).