Padina gymnospora

Geoffrey Van Damme austraeolis ornata 15mm 5.5mtr Blairgowrie.

Ashley Missen great shot

Geoffrey Van Damme Thanks Ash ,a beautifull nudi.

Ashley Missen Agree but a bugger to find

Patrik Good They tend to be on or near Padina gymnospora where I am diving, well hiding but not all that rare and always a good find.

Patrik Good Chelidonura fulvipuctata, size 15mm, depth 3 metres, nightdive Seaway SW Wall, 7/4/2012 on Padina gymnospora. It looked like the Chelidonura was eating the padina as it crawled over the edge several times. The Seaway has some opisthobranch life again after all. Chelidonura's are abundant at the moment. A new species for the dive site was found, to my surprise a nudi spawn eating species and certainly one of the most beautiful species I have ever encountered: Favorinus japonicus in a nice red colour form.

Alvaro Borba Hi Patrik Good you always find this species over Padina? Or you look at specific times? For example sunrise or sunset. Thanks

Patrik Good The Ch. fulvipunctata we have found at the Seaway are normally on the ground and not on the Padina. Happy to be corrected if I am wrong. This individual showed an unusual behaviour as it crawled quite quickly from the front to the back of the Padina, then to the front and back again. I don't think it was fleeing my torch light. Although it might appear that the Ch. fulvipunctata had eaten a big chunk out of the Padina I think the eating mark is from a different critter. Maybe there was an interesting smell or even some spawn or other food on the Padina, especially the Padina bite mark. This individual - one of countless Ch. fulvipunctatas that night - was a only about 15mm where as some got up to 40mm. This guy's colouration is also slightly brighter than that of other and bigger ones. Your second question, Alvaro Borba: I think all of the Chelidonura we normally find were on night dives. We find a few Aglajidae members here, and the one's I remember out of my head right now were night time finds. If this is of a particular interest to you I can doublecheck in my records. I can say little about sunrise dives. Most nudis we find on full moon nights, but there are also some species that we find mainly during the day and some both during the day and at night. Sunset in my experience is not as good as early to middle of the night (night nudis are not out yet, and day nudis disappearing). But that might probably vary with time zone and hemisphere that you are living in. Having said that most of our dives used to be happening around high tide and a factor to consider also is that Seaway at the moment is finding it's equilibrium again after a rough time, with most food sources and nudis vanished for weeks and weeks, only starting to come back now after the flooding in January. Sorry it's probably not the Padina that you have to look out in order to find the Chelidonura but you might be lucky. Padinas host other spectacular nudis too.

Alvaro Borba Wonder! That's what I wanted to know. Actually this species must be more active at night then. A long time I am looking for individuals of Aglajidae but still could not find them. Will increase the night dives to try to observe them. Best regards