The sea spider Pycnogonum stearnsi feeding on a very small brooding anemone while clutching the nudibranch Aegires albopunctatus. I don't think this sea spider regularly attacks nudibranchs, so I think it was just looking for something to hold on to.
Rebecca found this sea spider and we were all pretty excited, even thought they're the most horrific creatures on Earth. Ammothea hilgendorfi is a possibility, but I'm not sure how to separate it from Achelia.
A Lentil Sea Spider crawling on the submerged rocks along the side of the channel leading into Potter Pond. My young cousin first spotted it and then she kept an eye on it while I ran back to grab my camera, never seen one before.
...Pycnogonum stearnsi, but too small for me to tell what.
Small, transparent sea spider, in intertidal zone crawling on an algae
I turned this rock with TONS of sea spiders writhing underneath. As far as I'm concerned, sea spiders are pretty close to being the creepiest-looking animals on the planet, and yet they are awesome (mostly due to their creepiness), so I felt an odd mixture of delight and revulsion. Sort of like laughing and throwing up at the same time (except not really).
I'm puzzling over the species here. I know it's not Pycnogonum, the only other genus I've ever seen, because it has palps. Given this list and the pics and descriptions in Light's, I think Ammothea hilgendorfi seems like a possibility, but my pics aren't really good enough to count segments. There definitely aren't chelae (though there might be chelifores), and it did have ovigers.
Found in the San Francisco Bay, Albany Bulb, Albany, CA, swarming with many others under a rock.
Yet another, this time on a Giant Green Anemone (Anthopleura xanthogrammica). This one was slightly bigger, and male, indicated by the presence of the ovigers, egg-carrying legs unique to this class and only present on the males for this family.
Sea spiders, also called Pantopoda or pycnogonids, are
