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Well, have two new animals that am not sure of the species.
The first is obviously a cowie....looks sort of like a spotted cyphma, except the color is all wrong... and I am not aware that they live in the northern gulf:
You can see that the animals body is a darker red than the matle.
The next one is a very large Nudi (I think)...no one I know has seen these before about two weeks ago, when hundreds of them have showed up. They average around 5 inches...and are now easy to see at most of the dives sites in the area..
I've gone thru nudipixel... without any luck.
You are looking at the gills on the large one, and the front of the small one...the small one is around 3 inches:
The gills can be completely retracted.
If anyone knows what this is, would also like to understand where they came from and how they managed to do it?
We used to have Spanish dancers here.. and then one day the just left...
What depth did you find the nudibranchs, they look awesome.
Off of Destin Florida, the cowrie was at around 90 ft. The particular image of the two others were around 75 ft, but we saw them at two other locations at right at the same 85- 90 ft.
The cowrie appears to be eating the thing it is on... and the body shape does not match eith the spotted cyphoma or the flamingo tongue (as well as the color and spot shape)
I'm not an expert on cowries: we only see one type down here. But this one looks like the image of the spotted cyphoma in my book that says: "white mantle covered with gray to black, usually rounded spots".
My opinion for a better one.
I'm not an expert on cowries: we only see one type down here. But this one looks like the image of the spotted cyphoma in my book that says: "white mantle covered with gray to black, usually rounded spots".
My opinion for a better one.
Only problem is, the body shape of the shell is classic cowrie, and not cyphoma (which is very similar to a flamingo tongue)...and there is nothing about the red color, or the very not round spots. I don't believe that cyphoma is native here either.
That was my first though.. I saw one the week before, but it had it's gills retracted, so thought it was some young sea cucumber (which we have in spades here and are all different lumpy colors)...but one of the dive shop owners was on that dive and she saw one with the gills out...so it is not a sea cucumber. I went looking for them this week to get a good picture of them. Of the 5 people that each have thousands of dives here, none have seen any animal that looks like this.
Note: The one I first saw, it turns out, had been picked up by someone (I am always last out on the first dive, and last in on the second) and was in protection mode. I found 3 different ones this last weekend, at locations over 5 miles apart. Hard to miss a hand sized nudi (or some close relative).
Took me a bit to locate ID, but looks like the nudi is Dendrodoris warta. Only known from south-eastern USA, and seems to be uncommon. Have a look at the info found on The Sea Slug forum if you like. Since there are currently no photos of this species on Nudipixel it might be worth submitting a photo there for people to reference in the future.
As to how they got there, not sure but I might venture a guess. Some nudis are capable of laying thousands or millions of eggs at a time, which hatch into floating or swimming larvae. Once they find a home, the larvae probably develop fairly quickly. It would not be difficult to imagine a large population appearing quickly if conditions are in their favor.
Nice find!
Last edited by Kupu; April 11th, 2011 at 11:33 AM.
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Originally Posted by Searcaigh
