It's A Feather Duster, With Umm.... Christmas Lights?

[showjyr]

What in the world is this thing? It's about 3/16 of n inch long and has little sweepers like a duster but without the frilly things. It's on a zoa frag rock that I got this week. It has 1, maybe 2, little tubes that come out of it about 1/8 and will mostly retract if i touch it. The pic doesn't show all of the colors. They are blue, green, red, orange and look like little fiber optic filaments.....each little sweeper seeming to have multiple colors that "light up". I'm stumped.

PS. These are a lot easier to see full size.

 

[nanocubeking]

How does it come out? Like a twisting motion or straight out.

 

[showjyr]

Straight out, but the whole thing will retract if touched. I didn't mean it to sound like just the tube retracted.

 

[Lynden]

While not this very species, observant owners of Sabellastarte tubeworms will notice that one half of the crown will be a greenish colour one moment, then it will fade and appear on the other half. Looks rather... mechanical, like a Christmas tree. Very neat to watch and the reason for this characteristic evolving escapes me.

 

[showjyr]

Wish I could get some better pictures. This thing has some amazing colors.....hopefully it gets bigger.

Those blue colors that you see aren't from flash but are actually that way all the time, along with the other colors I mentioned.

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Cant help ID it but have two exactly the same on the Gonipora I have. It seems to have reflective "bits" in the fan and when you look at it from different angles it changes colour (mine seems to flash red/green). Mine haven't grown any bigger or spread at all.

 

[showjyr]

Darn. One of these guys an inch or 2 wide would look awesome.

 

[showjyr]

I had to dig this back up as I've done a little searching and found out exactly what these guys are. If anybody wants a link or two let me know.

They are flabelligerid polychaete worms and apparently can be invasive to corals as they can bore into coral tissue. Mine is in a small frag rock and I'll let it be.... for now. My suggestion to anyone that has them is to watch your corals.