This little sapsucker is a little dificult to spot. It’s nocturnal, and if it does happen to be “awake” during the day it blends in so very well with the algae it relies upon for food and camouflage. Look closely and you will see that it has lovely white edging on its translucent cerata — and digestive branches that literally look like those of a coniferous tree. Truly beautiful when examined closely in a camera’s lens. Threatening them, however, will result in cerata autotomizing (basically falling off everywhere). This is unlike the Polybranchia jensenae which tends to hold onto its cerata unless completely terrified (or so I’m told — never tried it!). If you look closely you can see that some of these animals have indeed shed their cerata or have begun to. These animals were found in less than seven feet (2 metres) of water, in a rocky, protected back-eddy of a surge zone in the Makena area of Maui. They were between 12 mm and 30 mm, or 1/2 – 1.2″