On my Macbook pro, I sometimes see this little thing vanish in and out of the dock - but today it appeared to splash for a tiny bit longer?

Activity Monitor is in the system and it shows you where most of your memory is being used and it monitors network usage. I'm sorry if this doesn't help you but I couldn't find anything about a "Performance Monitor" for a Mac.

Does this happen at random times or does there appear to be a pattern to when this application pops up in your doc (e.g. Following log in, or when application 'x' is also running). If it is taking place when you first log in check your start up items folder (Macintosh HD > System > Library > StartupItems). This folder is empty normally unless you have an application installed that boots when you log in.

(If you want to be 100% sure nothing is in there you can turn on invisible files using a program like Onyx). You could also try running a program like ProtectMac AntiVirus to check for viruses or malware.

OS/X has a "performance monitor" of sorts, it's called activity monitor, but it doesn't make sense for it to flicker and then disappear like that... My money would be on a remote administrator tool. Performance Monitor is the name of an app that does network management. You should consider getting a firewall protection for your mac, imo.

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