Okay, so this is mystery close-up, but one that I don't know the answer to yet. Abby spotted this organism with beautiful spreading tentacles in a very shallow, high rocky tidepool. Our best guess at this time is that it's a species of worm (perhaps in the family Oweniidae?), but we're not sure about its identity yet.
Just in case you're wondering, there are large pieces of sand and a piece of white shell surrounding the tentacles of the mystery worm. There's also a tubular organism with black-stripes in the bottom center of the photo that's not associated with the mystery tentacles — that's part of a different animal, a peanut worm.
If these tentacles look familiar to you, let me know!
How do you find these teeny tiny things?? Very pretty. To my very untrained eye, this looks sort of like a sea anemone with weird lacy tentacles. The tips look like nematocysts.
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