Northwest Nudibranchs

[Dusty2]

I'm starting a thread on our local sea-slugs. We had this going for quite awhile on northwest divers and it was a great place to learn and share our love for these interesting little critters. That forum seems to have lost it's ownership interest and everyone seems to be migrating over here so lets see how many branchers (slug heads) we have here.

Feel free to post any northwest nudi pix you have. Please no tropical stuff. This is open to everyone as long as it's nudibanch related and ones we can find here in the northwest. Please include the names if you know them so they will show up on searches for others that might be interested and will help new branchers to learn and enjoy these interesting critters. You don't need the Latin names, whatever you know will work. It is also a good place for the ones you don't know or have questions about. I will do my best to ID them for you and I hope that others will help out also.

Here are a few selected at random to get things started
Eubrancus rustyus

Tritonia festiva

Monterey sea lemon

Leopard dorid

[dphershman]

Dusty2,

I would suggest that posters to this thread attempt to determine the scientific name as it allows people to better find your images. For example, there are a number of nudibranchs called a "Sea Lemon", but if you call it Anisodoris nobilis then there's no confusion. And to make matters worse, common names are often applied differently to the same critter by different people. With the scientific names the search engines will do a better job of finding your image and referring it.

Dan Hershman

[Dusty2]

Awesome noblis Dan, Where did you find him?

Just wanted to say I understand your comment about scientific names as many of the common names, or what we perceive as the common names, are really incorrect or only used in limited areas and many nudies get several names but I also don't want to intimidate the posters here by requiring scientific names. If you know them fine but if you don't post your pix anyway. We want to see who is seeing what and where and to provide a forum for learning for those who are interested.

[Dusty2]

This is are very small guys, ebranchus sanjuanensis
They are very hard to find and likely won't be seen south of Admiralty inlet.
There are two in this first pic but you will have to look close to sort out #2



And this is the better camoflaged version both of these are shown with their egg masses

[Chevayea]

Clown Nudibranch (Triopha catalinae)

[Chevayea]

Shaggy Mouse Nudibranch/aka: Shag rug Nudibranch (Aeolidia papillosa (aka: farinacea))





And their eggs...

[Chevayea]

Striped Nudibranch (Armina californica)

[Dusty2]

Excellent stuff, Really great shots Chevayea

[Grateful Diver]

Here's a "twofer" ... the big one's janolus fusca ... not sure what the little one is ...


striped nudi on a kelp leaf ... I like the contrast on this one ...


Cockerell's dorid ...


Shaggy mouse ...


Dendronotis diversicolor ... hanging on for dear life in a strong current ...


Clown dorid ...


Dendronotis rufus ...


Pink tritonia ...


hooded nudibranch ...


Taylor's sea hare ...


dendronotis iris ...


golden dirona ...


flabellina trilineata ...


... and my favorite shot of a janolus fusca ...


... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[dwashbur]

Bob,
The little guy in your twofer looks like a spotted aglaja, Aglaja ocelligera.

[dwashbur]

I'm surprised nobody has posted this one yet. Shy little fellow that I am, I'll go ahead

Dirona albolineata, a.k.a. white-lined dirona, alabaster nudibranch, and a host of others

[Dusty2]

... and my favorite shot of a janolus fusca ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Really awesome stuff Bob! I have to disagree on the favorite janolus though I'd go for the twofer. The composition is awesome and the aglaja ocelligera really adds to the interest factor. I love the golden shot and yes the stripped is great.

Lets try to keep it down to 3 or 4 pix per post so we don't stress the forums bandwidth

Nice work Dave we had to leave something for you!

If we got all these posts so far together we could make one hell of an interesting coffee table book! Or maybe send a link to National geographic and get them to do an article on Puget sound. Wouldn't that be cool!

Great stuff guys, We have some real talent here for sure! :smt038 :smt038 :smt038

[Dusty2]

Dendronotus albus Mateing

Eubranchus rustyus in close

Eubranchus rustyus in mass with eggs, This will give an idea of the size (very small)

Cuthona concinna in mass, There are at least 10 in this shot

[spatman]

Hermissenda crassicornis:

[enchantmentdivi]

My favorites....Melibe Leonina

[Dusty2]

Nice angle with the surface in the background. Purrrrrty

[dphershman]

Here's my old favorite standby, another Frosted Nudibranch Dirona albolineata. At Cove 2 last night.

[Dusty2]

Nice shot, I love the way they look so translucent like frosted glass.

They are always a great photo subject and probably the most photographed of all the nudies in the sound. I never get tired of admiring them both underwater and in photos.

[LCF]

I just opened this thread -- What an incredible treat!

Dusty, it's your fault that I spent all weekend with my nose deep in every hydroid I saw, desperately searching for some of the cool, camouflaged nudies that you post pictures of. I think you owe me a dive to show me how to see them :-)

[Dusty2]

I plead guilty Anytime you want I'd be glad to, but to guarantee you'll see them you need to dive with me in Port Townsend. I'll be around this weekend at Redondo but I doubt that I will dive. Too many people in water that is already mucky.

I will be back in PT the following weekend though

[Biodiversity_Guy]

A couple from Sund Rock this summer:

Opalescent Nudibranch

Flabellina trophina ( Long-mouthed Aeolid)

[spatman]

Spotted Aglaja (aglaja ocelligera)

[John Rawlings]

What a GREAT thread, Dusty! Thanks for starting it up here.

After Jan began to post his wonderful shots/artwork here on NWDC, the on-going Nudibranch thread was the ONLY thing left that drew me back to NWDiver.com from time to time, and now we'll have it here as well! FANTASTIC!!!

Nudi's RAWK!!!

- John

Hmmmm.....I just tried posting a couple of shots and REALLY didn't like the way they looked with the automatic re-sizing, so I deleted them. I'll try to re-post them later using the "old way".

[Dusty2]

Thanks for joining us here John. Nice to have another great northwest photographer and nudi lover join in.

For me the simple img format linked to my smugmug site works best to preserve quality without using up to much bandwidth on the forum

Seems we have lost northwest diver as a viable forum. Sad but it's been comming for awhile.

[John Rawlings]

For me the simple img format linked to my smugmug site works best to preserve quality without using up to much bandwidth on the forum.

It still might work, but with smaller images than I typically use (I generally use TIF or NEF for use in publishing). What I'll do later is resize my shots and attempt to repost using the NWDC tool. It'll probably work like a champ.

Seems we have lost northwest diver as a viable forum. Sad but it's been coming for awhile.

Personally, I think the Northwest Diver site has been "lost" for a long, long time....there was just a bunch of you folks that kept trying to dig up the corpse and give it CPR to try to revive it!

- John