Squishy Colorful Boat Growth

[Shon]

Well, maybe this is OK, posting for help identifying certain odd thing(s) that grow on customer's boats. If not, that is OK too, thread can be moved or deleted.

These things appear every November-April when lack of rain, and 65°-80° temperature swings occur. They also only appear where a type of Gorgonian grows. So it is partial to dirty water. I am guessing it is a type of sponge, but it reacts when poked by puckering up and shrinks to nearly half it's expanded size. This makes me think it may be a type of tunicate. It seems to not care if it is fresh bottom paint (copper based biocide), NiBrAl, bronze or stainless steel, but yet to see growth on zinc. They also grow on the sunny sides of a boat and not where it is always shaded. They are in multiple shades of color and contain small circles (mouths?) throughout it's body. These circles also vary in color. Fleshy and squishy, also has vein lines in it. They seem to be a hit with the Snappers and Atlantic Spadeheads that follow me, but not Sheepshead.

Instead of letting them fall to the acidic muck below, I captured a few "flavors" in a bottle, coolered and took photos with my phone at home. That is probably a big no-no but alas, my job is cleaning boats (they were gonna get scraped off anyhow) and normally they will die soon with warming waters and due rain.

Photos do not do justice for colors. Well minus the clear one with white circles growing around a Mangrove Tunicate.

Pix, Body/Circle(Mouth?) colors


Purple/Pink


Dark Red/OrangeYellow

Orange/Yellow

Clear/White

 

[Maritimer]

Sadly, the photos are too out-of-focus for me to offer anything like a clear ID, but I'd put sponges off the table. (Looks as though your camera was enamored with the edge of the paper plate (>_<)) Tunicates, though . . . yes, I think tunicates are very possible.

~Bruce

 

[Shon]

Maybe the plate. Most likely the cheap phone camera.

Here is more of the Purple/Pink one with different backgrounds.


Pink dots are the circles. Green is the vein.

 

[Shon]

Also, do tunicate colonies form as a solid mass like this? They always seem segmented in the many types I have seen.

It grows seasonal like the carpet sea squirt but these don't squirt. Scraped a lot of rubbery "sheets" of carpet sea squirt today.. And the always present and invasive pleated squirt.​

 

[Maritimer]

You sound as though you know a lot more about tunicates and sea-squirts than I do, lol!

I'll place a call to our resident oddball-ID sorceress, @Lionfish Lair - she's a very busy person (also very, very good at this game), but perhaps she'll swing through and offer an opinion.

~Bruce

 

[Shon]

I really only know what I've seen and could identify by others information (like this one guys thing on an attempted breeding of skilletfish(clingfish) or gulfspecimens.org, .pdf from edu sites, etc). The internet is an amazing resource.

Well the bottle just got dumped back into the marina they came from. Good luck and see you next year maybe squishy things. Unless it rains a lot this winter.

 

[K. Steven]

I think they're tunicates as well. Are incurrent and excurrent siphons visible?

 

[Shon]

They (the circles/mouths?) seem to be flush with the body mass itself. It also seems to have a thin clear coat even over that. I did notice that all color forms have that green vein.

Have not come across my favorite color sky blue one with pink circles this year. :/

 

[K. Steven]

I'm curious where you found these?

 

[Shon]

I'm curious where you found these?

Flagler Beach, Hammock "Ginn" Marina

It is a seasonal growth like I mentioned, it only appears in winter waters when there is a good month of no rain to dilute the ICW.

They don't appear on backyard boats, very rare in Palm Coast Marina, and none so far in Comanche Cove (St Augustine) (too close to inlet/cleaner water?). At Ginn-land we have these yellow and red twig gorgonian? Has white eyelashes(polyps?) that retract when disturbed/touched. So I am guessing it likes the dirty water.

 

[K. Steven]

I'd be interested to see if I can find some these nice near Ft. Lauderdale/Pompano area. Thanks for the post.