Today’s feature is a whole family of 3,000+ species, the Nudibranchs. Truly beautiful, they are small sea slugs recognizable by the exposed gills on their back, and they come in virtually every color and combination of colors. Some are poisonous while others pretend to be poisonous with their vibrant colors. Some feed on stinging cells of hydrozoans and store them in the rear of their body for protection. Some ingest toxins from sponges and become toxic and inedible. Some even produce their own chemicals.
The feathery gills of a Spanish Dancer Nudibranch wedged in a crevice at Oahu's #Northshore . These large nudibranchs can grow to over 30 cm long but are usually smaller. Your #Hawaii#sealife#photooftheday
Just uploaded a few more pictures from my spectacular Philippines trip! This time we've got a teeny tiny "leaf sheep" nudibranch, a peacock Mantis Shrimp, a porcelain crab, and a bobtail squid.
Today was yet another awesome dive day despite the Coast Guard sending us back to shore after our first dive due to rough conditions (it has been the same for a couple days now - not sure why today was special) and a tiny camera leak. This may have been my best photography day despite only having 2 photography dives.
Included photos: ornate ghost pipefish, "Shaun the sheep" nudibranch, robust ghost pipefish, and painted frogfish.
Leaf sheep nudibranch eat algae and can photosynthesise themselves. They care found in the southern islands (Eg Pulau Hantu, Kusu, semakau etc) #singapore#nudibranch#digitalart#wildlife
A small selection of the pictures from Sunday's dive near Ammouliani with @vivia. First dive of the year but it was already surprisingly warm! 23°C and sunny, 18°C surface water temperature and still 16°C at 25m depth. We saw a lot of interesting animals.
Featuring: a yellow nudibranch (phyllidia flava) grazing on seaweed next to red finger sponge, a painted comber swimming on top of rocks covered with some black sponge, a biscuit sea star in a little cave surrounded by colorful sponges, and in the top-left a nudibranch ("sea cow", peltodoris atromaculata) and some yellow sea anemones, and last but not least two starfishes, one red one with five arms and another orange one that once had six arms plus some bonus mermaid's cup at the bottom.
Paper versions of Hopkin’s rose nudibranch, purple and Sputnik urchin as well as a California freshwater shrimp. Each contain gifts to unwrap. #InverteFest#nudibranch#marine