New Zealands's Mysterious Sponge-like Creature

Kryptonomic writes: "New Zealand's marine experts are puzzled by the parasitic sponge-like animal that could threaten NZ's aquaculture industry. Apparently the animal, which so far has not been identified, kills all other sealife by embedding itself on the victim and slowly feeding on it. The parasite also reproduces asexually and could end up dominating the ecological niche it occupies."

Comments

Doesn't actually "feed" on victim

[swmccracken]

It seems that it filters out and "eats" plankton. However, it doesn't directly attack more solid sealife, it simply spreads over everything and smothers it. It doesn't seem to "inject" into (say) mussels or whatever's around to assimilate nutrients from it. (read the nz herald article)

Yeah, it seems bad for NZ sealife at the moment - man-of-war jellyfish have made their recent first appearance and a while ago there was a mysterious mussel parasite. So, it's not the first time that something wierd's turned up in the water. There was also an alge bloom a year or two back, which I don't think was ever totally explained.