[Madidus_Scientia (OP)]

My friends went camping and fishing (without me ) and came across this thing. Does anyone know what is is?

They said when they first found it it was attached to the stick in the video and looked like a piece of seaweed.

[RD]

Looks like a sea spider.

Giant sea spiders...

[DoctorBeaver]

yewwwk!

[Madidus_Scientia (OP)]

ah, indeed it does. thanks. I've been looking through images of sea spiders on google image search but i can't seem to find one that looks like that one in particular, see how it has sort of leaf/feather looking things coming off its legs? It would be so perfectly camoflaged in seaweed. Its a pretty cool little critter, i want one for a pet

[LeeE]

I'm pretty sure it's a type of polychaete worm - possibly in the family Sabellidae (feather duster worms).  I remember seeing them on 'Blue Planet'

[Madidus_Scientia (OP)]

hmmm nah i reckon RD is right cause its got 8 appendages and moves the same way as the ones in the vid he pasted

[LeeE]

I think you need to count again, a bit more carefully.

It's related to these tubeworms

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Reef0200.jpg

[Madidus_Scientia (OP)]

Hmm ok you could be right, the feathery sort of appendages in that pic do look like the ones from our mystery creature, and my friends did say that when they first saw it it just looked like a plant growing upright out of that stick. But even if it has more than 8 appendages it doesn't seem to have anything near the number of appendages tubeworms usually do, or do you think its growing them in sequence? (i mean growing a few long ones then growing new ones instead of a hundred all at once) Or some were bitten off by a predator?

[RD]

hmmm nah i reckon RD is right cause its got 8 appendages and moves the same way as the ones in the vid he pasted

The youtube link I posted shows giant sea spiders on the ocean floor which have more than eight legs.

The number of walking legs is usually eight (four pairs), but species with five and six pairs exist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_spider

[LeeE]

The one I remember seeing on Blue Planet had (from memory) about twenty to thirty tentacles - less than the one I linked to on wikimedia, but more than your one, which does seem a bit 'sparse'.  Apparently there are more than 10,000 different types though, and they vary widely in form.

If anyone's still not sure I'll dig out the DVDs and get a screen grab - just got to remember which prog it was on.

[Madidus_Scientia (OP)]

Turns out its neither, its actually a feather star. http://www.elasmodiver.com/BCMarinelife/images/Feather-star.jpg

[RD]

They do look very similar

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But I'd like to see video of a feather-star moving to be sure.
The feather-star (right) looks like it has roots in the sea floor, the other one does not appear to have these root-like features.

[LeeE]

Ok - I'll go with that.

[Madidus_Scientia (OP)]

Here's a couple of videos of different species of feather star moving,

they move in much the same way.

Also, if you zoom right in on the original photo you can see some little white leg kind of things coming out under the body, I believe these are the root-like features.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crinoid

[RD]

Definitely a feather-star Madidus.

This video shows the "feathers" spreading on the downstroke limbs...