White Sea Pen?

[Tom Nic]

I found several of these critters on a recent dive at Saltar's Point in Steilacoom at a depth of 25 - 30fsw. At first I misidentified them as a Sea Whip, then Spatman and Gcbryan helpfully pointed out that they were more likely White Sea Pen's, which was cool because it is another critter that I had never seen!
<a href="" title="CIMG6614 by thomasnicodemus, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2404/198 ... 5f352c.jpg" width="375" height="500" alt="CIMG6614"></a>

<a href="" title="CIMG6616 by thomasnicodemus, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2388/198 ... 60ab85.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="CIMG6616"></a>

There is some possible? disagreement between 3 or 4 of my Id books. Here's what I found when I looked them up.

Gotshall's "Guide To Marine Invertebrates" on pg 35 has a pic of one that looks like what I took a picture of, Stylatula elongata, as Spat so helpfully pointed out. Whelks To Whales on pg 36 also lists a White Sea Pen, but has as it's latin name Virgularia sp. and as an alternate name Virgularia ? tuberculata. Andy Lamb's book has it this way as well. Both of the latter books look slightly different than what I photographed, but it's not clear enough to tell, and those of you familiar with ID books know how drastically different pictures of the same critter can be!

Two different species perhaps? Or just the ongoing taxonomical process of figuring out what species something actually is? Just guesses, that's beyond my pay grade!

Comments? Anyone?

[Seth T.]

That's funny, I saw one of those on my dive last night at Edmonds Oil Dock! I'd never seen one before either.