predomalpha's Favorites

An amazing glass squid. When I disturbed it it would tuck in its tentacles and eyes, and even its fins and show big spots. So cool. The area around the brain was brightly iridescent. There are very faint long tubercles around the mantle if that helps with species id.
Really hard to get nice shots with a compact camera sadly.

~2.5cm long

I found the cowry during low tide on the beach in Henderson. It's 57 mm long, width 36 mm.If it isn't from NZ, it came a long way? On the other hand: warmer oceans and temperatures make a difference to biodiversity.

Cool to see this species finally. I've been searching for quite a bit.
There were at least 7 or 8 within a large Amathia wilsoni bush. I always search through this exact bryozoan here so they may have just popped up. Eggs were also present. I also saw another individual on a separate bush.

~0.5-0.8cm long
~2 & 3m subtidal

This is my second one of these. There was also another one in the bag for this date but unfortunately it was broken. I'm very happy to have two good ones (sa https://inaturalist.nz/observations/151690092).
5mm grid.

First image: Athoracophorus bitentaculatus at rest, unaware of the fact that a flatworm is on its heels, following its mucus trail.

Second image: The flatworm has caught up with the slug and pounces on its prey. The slug shows a surprisingly quick reaction and immediately elongates its body in an attempt to escape, albeit at a sluggish pace. Which is a bit faster than I would have imagined.
And just when I thought the slug was done for, it pulled one out of the hat: the BASE-jumper move! Without parachute, it let itself fall off the tree into the leaf-litter below.
The flatworm looked left and right, seemingly confused by the sudden disappearance of its prey, then showed some superior intelligence. Applying some basic notions of physics, it reasoned that if it let itself fall off the tree also, it would land in exactly the same place. And so it did!
Upon landing in the leaf-litter on the forest floor however the flatworm appeared disoriented and was unable to locate the slug again. With that BASE-jumper move, the slug may have just pulled off the narrowest of all escapes!

Tonna attacking Stichopus sea cucumber at night. As he extended his proboscis around the sea cucumber, the cucumber shed its skin on two sides of its body and slipped away, releasing its grip on the bottom and floating away in the surge. The Tonna was left with two flaps of tough skin that it did not eat (second photo).