Flamingo Tongue Snail

Common Name: Flamingo Tongue Snail

Scientific Name: Cyphoma gibbosum

Family: Ovulidae - false cowries, predatory and parasitic sea snails

Class: Gastropoda - Snails and slugs

Conservation status: Not yet assessed

Sighting: First time sight, apparently it is common in reefs

While snorkeling in Dania Beach, taking pictures of different specimens of this branched sponge, very common in the area (soon to be featured in this blog, once we finish its identification), we noticed something unusual. If you watch the picture below, you can see three orange formations. Two of them , the two on the left and center, were just algae build ups. But the third one, had a brighter orange color, and more defined shape, so we too a closer look. 

In this enlarged picture of the creature, you can see better details. It does look like a slug, with beautiful bright pinkinsh-orange color, and yellow spots circled in brown. The actual size is about an inch (the diameter of the sponge branches is about thumb size).

We have spent some time searching sea slugs, trying to identify the species, unsuccessfully. Until we noticed that unusual protuberance in the middle of the body. This is not a slug, it is a snail!. A very peculiar one, as the bright color is not the shell, it is actually the mantle, that protrudes from the body and encloses the shell, which is plain white. The protuberance in the middle shows where the actual shell lays.

Finally, here is a video of the whole think, showing the sponge from the water level, and a close up of the sponge focused on the snail, as the sponge gently moves with the waves. The snail actually eats the sponge, which recovers growing more polyps.  

Definitively, a very exciting sight. We are looking forward seeing more specimens of this snail.

Porkfish

Common Name: Porkfish
Scientific Name: Anisotremus virginicus

Family: Haemulidae - Grunts
Class: Actinopterrygii - ray-finnned fishes

Conservation status: Not yet assessed
Sighting: Common on rocky reef areas.


Yesterday we went to Dania beach (John U. Lloyd beach park), in fort Lauderdale, and found a great snorkeling area. The tide was low, the water transparent as if it was not there, and the cloudless sun beamed through the quiet waves creating a magic diving atmosphere.

The interesting area starts around 200 ft - 60 mt from the shore. Although a bit deep for our poor snorkeling abilities, (10 feet -3 meters), the algae bottom starts to become a reef, with large coral formations, and plenty of colorful fishes.

We captured many interesting creatures that we are now identifying, so we can post them, but as a primer, here is a short video of this graceful school of porkfish. The only thing not to like is the awful name for these beautiful grunt fishes.
We could not take a good close up picture, they swim so fast!, so a frame from the video will have to do. 

We had seen porkfish before, in Virginia keys. It is very easy to identify, with its two distinctive black strikes in the front, but we had not seen them on groups, always as one or two specimens swimming among other species (most in this series of videos are yellow fins).

Watch this space for better pictures and more videos of porkfish.

Halimeda

Common Name: Unknown - Cactus Alga? Coin Green?
Scientific Name: Genus Halimeda - Halimeda discoidea?

Family: Halimedaceae - Halimeda is the only genus
Class: Bryopsidophyceae - macroscopic green alga

Conservation status: Not yet assessed
Sighting: Ocasional

Identifying this species is very difficult for the amateur, as seems common with alga and seaweed. We think this beautiful alga is part of the genus Halimeda, but we can not narrow down to which species it really belongs. Lacking a good alga identification site, we have found pictures of Halimeda discoidea looking very similar, but then, some other H. discoidea pictures looked completely different, showing branches or segments of discs, which do not seem apparent in our pictures. It may well be some of the pictures are misidentified themselves, making the whole search even more challenging. 

In any case, Halimeda, described as a "green macroalgae, with a body (thallus) composed of calcified green segments", and the pictures of some of its species (it has more than 40 species listed, we didn't found examples of all), seem close enough to give us confidence we have the right genus.

Of the various common names we have found for species of this genus, green coin seem to be the most appropriate to this particular specimen. At least that is how we would describe it, they are the size of a US dollar quarter, but thicker, with a characteristic bright green rim. They do look like some Crassulacean plants (cactus without spines, if you want), therefore the "cactus alga" name, which also seem suited to this particular example.

FInally, in this -poor- video you can take a look how the colonies are interspersed within the turtle grass. You can also see a starfish featured in Cushion Starfish post, and the location of the area near Bill Baggs Cape lighthouse where you can find this species.

Look for an update on this page with better video, and hopefully full identification of the species. We will try to carefully analyze the stem structure, to see if it matches the descriptions.