Mark Farrer Seeking advice on this 1 guys
Blairgowrie approx 10mm long
Mark Farrer Could this be a juvenile Chromodoris epicura.
Patrik Good Gymnodoris alba
Mark Farrer Thanks Patrik Good
Patrik Good You're welcome. You found so many beautiful and exciting nudis lately. No wonder this guy is around too, probably feasting on them. Love your pics.
Patrik Good Don't you like when nudis try to measure up with other creatures underwater? Here a hiding prawn and what is probably a Gymnodoris alba (a nudikiller as far as I know), size about 8 mm, found Seaway Southport QLD, 28/10/2011, 3metres deep. Found the nudi only cataloguing the prawn picture (which it's heavily cropped).
Patrik Good Are Gymnodoris alba direct developers or do they have veligers?
Gary Cobb I dont think they are direct developers because they don't have permanent food sources to lay their eggs upon! Like Glossodoris vespa. http://www.nudibranch.com.au/pages/vespa.htm
Patrik Good Probably No. 111 for my Gold Coast Seaway (Australia) collection. Gymnodoris sp. 1; 19/4/2013; size 5mm; depth 4 metres; 24 degrees water temperature; 3 metres visibility. This individual reminds of Gymnodoris sp. 4 in Gary's Australia/NZ app. Striking detail are the eyes behind the rhinophores as found in Gymnodoris bicolor and Gymnodoris sp. 3 NOW Debelius/Kuiter. Gills, mantle and sole are present. Head is pointed and lined with a red dotted rim. It looks like the branch has just eaten a shell because the body shape looks just untypical, sort of similar to the tiny white shells that were found everywhere. The Seaway produced great results yesterday and very surprising finds, leading me to question a few hypothesis. Although Gymnodoris eat other fellow branchs and cannibalism was (unintentionally) witnessed they must have a different food source other than branchs. They were the second most abundant genus with probably three different G. species found that evening. All in all 5 different species were found at the Seaway in the afternoon and at least 7 more species were found during a night dive. Beautiful and rarely seen nudi spawn around too. The Seaway is worth branching again!
Gary Cobb This looks like a juvenile Gymnodoris alba Patrik.
Patrik Good juvenile and cf. sound always good. I found a Gymnodoris alba too. I will try to take a better picture and will probably stick with the sp. I have seen juvenile G. alba but this one is different, not just because of the visible eyes. What also puzzles me is that Debelius/Kuiter say that most Gymnodorids have non-retractile rhinophores and an almost complete loss of the mantle skirt both of which does not apply to this guy. What I think is that nobody knows and what I know is that nobody wants DNA or radular analysis done on this one :-)
Gary Cobb Congrats on the find I am sure the critter will love it's new name!
Patrik Good No critter likes the name 'sp.', Gary :-) Well, maybe some additional information on this one: this individual is back in the Sea. I don't think it had swallowed a shell because it was curled into a 1.5mm blob for a long time. The shape (quite unusual for a Gymnodoris) and colour of the critter stayed the same over night in captivity. Even with better lighting during the day I was not able to take a better picture showing the eyes. But I have about 100 poor photos of the critter :-) The find of so many Gymnodoris was a real surprise that changed my perception of this genus and their food source. There are simply not that many (visible) prey out there to support the kind of population of Gymnodoris (size and amount) that I encountered.
Patrik Good Don't you like when nudis try to measure up with other creatures underwater? Here a hiding prawn and what is probably a Gymnodoris alba (a nudikiller as far as I know), size about 8 mm, found Seaway Southport QLD, 28/10/2011, 3metres deep. Found the nudi only cataloguing the prawn picture (which it's heavily cropped).
Patrik Good Are Gymnodoris alba direct developers or do they have veligers?
Gary Cobb I dont think they are direct developers because they don't have permanent food sources to lay their eggs upon! Like Glossodoris vespa. http://www.nudibranch.com.au/pages/vespa.htm
Patrik Good Actually, I found 17 opisthobranch species on this dive. Here is the problem ID: Gold Coast Seaway, Australia, depth 2 metres, size 7mm. Any help appreciated. Sorry, no clear photo. But I collected it and it clearly shows black or dark brown rhinophores.
Patrik Good Doublecounted one. Here is the list @ 16/8/2012: Aeolidiella alba (7), Bullina lineata (4), Ceratosoma tenue (1), Elysia ? (1), Goniobranchus albonares (5), Goniobranchus decorus (10), Goniobranchus cf. reticulatus (1), Goniobranchus geometricus (10), Goniodoridella sp. 1 (10), Gymnodoris alba (1), Hydatina physis (1), Hypselodoris obscura (20), Micromelo undulata (1), Noumea simplex, two colour variations (5), Thorunna sp. (2), Trinchesia yamasui (1)
Erwin Koehler I' d like to do a guess on what I see: Elysia sp.
Gary Cobb Because of the quality of the photo I would say Elysia sp. too!
Patrik Good Thank you, Erwin and Gary. Certainly not easy to ID based on this photo.
Ashley Missen Hi Everyone Please Remember to send you stats and Photos to data@nudibase.com as well your post here - this way I can add them to the Database and then you can help everyone make it easier to find nudis in your area - this is important as It is the only way we can know what species are where and how many of them - Cheers and Thanks Ash
Ashley Missen Regular stats are great
Frank Wehner Will send the data tonight. ;-)
Ken Thongpila I will send Nelson Bay nudi hunts trip last week soon Ashley :-) Nothing special :-( no new species but good hunts....
Ashley Missen Thanks Ken Thongpila and Frank Wehner - I will keepading as fast as I can - Soon I will have a Data entry form on the Website
Patrik Good Ashley, I have got an issue with my stats. We normally got a few larger species that are almost epidemic at certain times in the dive sites around here (Chromodoris daphne, Ceratosoma tenue, used to be Hypselodoris obscura, Phyllidia's, Chromodoris splendida's, even Sagaminopteron ornatum etc. up north, Gymnodoris alba south). I normally photograph a few ones but then am losing interest as I am trying to find new nudi species and not researching a particular area thoroughly (this wouldn't be possible in our dive site due to environmental conditions anyhow). I know this sounds careless. We find so many different species here in one dive that it doesn't make sense and in my view it isn't feasible for me to count them all. So, if the data are for scientific purposes they won't be useable. Also, sometimes data from different divers in the same dive overlap (but often to a surprisingly low degree). Last night, I saw probably around 300 nudis but only 20 different species (hopefully 5 new ones for the dive site). I think most branchers go for new species and are less concerned about numbers. I am not sure if they share my issue and are overwhelmed with stats at times. So, question: how important are numbers? Should I resort to estimating or would you prefer having only numbers when they are accurate? As I am setting up my stats atm I'll probably have categories of 1, 2-4, 5-10, 20 to about 50, 50+ A similar issue I have got with their size. I normally estimate. We often find Ceratosoma tenue of various sizes. As they are very frequent the size data will be lost. By the way, is photographic evidence absolutely required? I reckon there are nudibranchers out there who don't have a camera available. My photos are sometimes just really bad. So, the question is if I should include those. I am pretty sure I am overwhelming you here, Ash. But I do it rather in the group. I am interested how other branchers are feeling about and handling their stats. And especially, how you want your stats.
Ashley Missen I am happy to get any data and est. on common species is ok as the regularity of the stats will this as the database is not a 100% scientific we can allow for some generalness my philosophy is some data is better than none. For example if someone sends in a photo with min data we can still say that there was at least 1 of that species at that site on that day. Hope this helps. Cheers Ash
Patrik Good Thanks, that helps. What's your preferred picture size, format?
Ashley Missen jpeg 1000 pixels on long side - Cheers and Thanks Ash
