Cuddle Puddle

Today is the two year anniversary of my Dad passing away.  I had to cancel for Slugfest 2023 and of course 2020 was canceled due to Covid, so this is my first one since 2018.

We are going on a longer boat ride today to dive Devils Point.  All of the boats are going there.  It should be a fun caravan.

I brought a rubber chicken on this trip and it is being used in a very different fashion.  Instead of using it to shame divers who forget gear or do something stupid on the boat… it is being used to squawk when someone shows a sluggy thing that isn’t a nudibranch.  Like my air breathing slug.  Doh!

I keep showing my mutants in the daily review and they have called them the sideshow collection!  Terry keeps saying that he is having nightmares about that Doriprismatica atromarginata mutant.

Terry also said that the guanine crystals are what cause the glowing in nudis.  I looked it up: In some nudibranch species, guanine crystals, specifically in the form of stacks of purine crystals, are found in specialized cells near the epithelial basal lamina, contributing to a temporally dynamic, sparkling, silvery appearance due to their light reflection.

Georgina has accused Wart Slugs (Phyllidia) of being the “Slugs of the Apocalypse” because they are so hard to distinguish.  Very true.  They are tough.  I also think the Aeolids can be confusing.

Our species count is a little low.  Terry thinks that we are not seeing those species that feed on soft coral and sea pens… as there is less and less habitat.

We had two very soft corall-ey dives at Devil’s Point.  It was a nice change of pace.  We saw a big cuddle puddle of Thorunna furtiva having a party.

At Anouk’s recommendation, I added a shortcut button to magnify when I want to ensure that I get a good focus on something.  Cool.  I keep learning.

Pirjo forgot to vacuum pump her camera, so she served as a spotter on the night dive.  I tried the new magnify feature, but the button I chose wasn’t reliably working.  I am going to choose a different button.

We lost power for a bit as we were getting ready for the afternoon dive.  Then the internet was out in the evening.  It makes things a little hard to work on my photos and blog.  We heard that there was a truck accident that took out some power lines.  Oh well, I just went to sleep early.

Gettin’ sluggy with it

128 - Phyllidia alyta

129 - Phyllidia elegans

130 - Reticulidia fungia

131 - Dermatobranchus albus

132 - Thuridilla gracilis

133 - Verconia simplex

134 - Philinopsis gardineri

135 - Tritonia sp. 4

136 - Thuridilla kathae

137 - Gymnodoris tuberculosa

Are you a lumper or a splitter?

I slept in a little more than usual today.

I heard a story yesterday that Neville Coleman collected the first specimen of what we now know is Melibe colemani.  Supposedly, he told Terry about it and only agreed to send the specimen if Terry promised to name it after him.  Thus the name.  That’s not how it is supposed to work.  A new species is supposed to be named by the scientist after someone they choose.

I have a lot of things to put on the Frogfish.  The Frogfish is this huge keychain with a thumb drive attached to it.  Mike is very adamant that Froggie lives in the Frog House.  

It has been decided that tomorrow 4/7 we will be going to Devils Point and Cemetery.  Then on Wednesday 4/9 we are going to Ligpo Bavan Sanctuary and then Dive & Trek.

We were all reminded that when we are turning over stones to look for slugs, make sure to turn it back.  The things that live under the rock like to live under not over it. 

Terry announced that there will be another protected Marine Park here in the Philippines.  That’s so great.

There were two amazing dives at Bethlehem in the morning.  I was really happy.  I found a terribly mutant Doriprismatica atromarginata and brought it over to Terry but he only glanced at it for a moment and wasn’t really interested.  Oh well.

Terry gave a talk at 2pm about “What’s in a Name?”.  Here are the highlights…

There is a genus of birds called Turdus.  How unfortunate.

There is a species of sponge that scientists called Spongiforma squarepantsii for sSponge Bob Square Pants.  Who said scientists don’t have a sense of humor?

Then he told a story about Hypselodoris kanga.  Everyone kept finding a different species very similar but not kanga.  They were for short, just calling it “not kanga”.  Eventually they called it “roo” and that species officially became Hyselodoris roo.

Some other species name meanings:

• Dalanghita is Tagalog word for mandarin orange

• Hituanensis means bus stop… this species was found where the bus to Manila stopped

• Buntot means tail

• Kalawakan means galaxy

Terry posed the question: Are you a lumper or a splitter?  In other words, as a scientist do you like to lump species together or split them apart?

He also mentioned that the Russian scientists have been messing with the taxonomy when it really doesn’t need to be messed with.

On the afternoon dive I snooted on a diopter shot.  I needed some help from Glenn to point the snoot, but I did it!

Then when I downloaded my photos, I ran out of space on Lightroom Cloud so I had to upgrade my storage space.  It costs me a little more each month but I would rather do that than have to manage to under 1TB.  I also store a backup of my photos on a physical hard drive.

News flash, my other lens is a 25mm, not 30mm.  Oh well, I tried it anyway on the Blackwater dive.  I got a couple of halfway decent shots, but still not great.  I need to buy a 30mm lens and port.  It was only Mike, Georgina, this guy Tyler and me.  I saw my first paper nautilus.  And I got a bad shot of the transparent wonderpus.

I am going to try to edit these a little more to get rid of the backscatter.

Tonight I had the kitchen staff save some chicken skewers and a banana for me to eat afterward.

Slug-a-Thon

119 - Facelinid sp. 5

120 - Hypselodoris lacuna

121 - Jorunna sp. 3

122 - Tenellia sp. 18

123 - Phyllidia ocellata

124 - Sakuraeolis nungunoides

125 - Vellicola amphorella

126 - Hexabranchus lacer

127 - Aegires pruvotfolae

Nudi Drip

I am trying not to pay attention to what is going on back home, but man… the stock market tanked yesterday.  Oof.  That hurt.

At breakfast, Harvey told me that there is an Olympus diopter for focusing that might help when using the 60mm.  I need to research what that is.

In the morning photo review, Terry told us that the name of the Ercolania endophytophaga is because…

    Endo = internal

    Phyto = plant

    Phaga = to eat

So I guess we can call any vegetarian we know a PhytoPhaga.

Here are some other nudi name breakdowns:

• kalawaka is galaxy in Tegalan

• longicornum is long horns

• buko is coconut

• lacuna has clear circles that look like holes… lacuna means hole in latin

Nembrotha milleri is named for Mike Miller who is here at the workshop!

Terry answered the question: Why does studying nudibranchs matter?

• Nudibranchs are great indicators of ecosystem health.  If have many, the health is good.

• We need to document all of them before they go extinct!

• They assist in biomedical research.  Scientists study how simple nervous systems function.

• They have been used to create new drugs to combat HIV and certain types of cancer.

We decided that we will be going to a couple of special dive sites this week: Devils Point and Cemetery.  There was also talk of Chicken Feather and Bonito.  Or Ligpo then Dive-n-Trek.

The gap on the trending curve is narrowing between this workshop and previous ones… we are now at 241 total.

Oh no, we had two really unproductive dives this morning.  But I did find this mutant nudi: 

On the surface interval I asked Terry how to read a scientific paper.  He said to first read the summary, and then the discussion.  If I wanted to know more, then I should read the whole article.

The resort ran out of bananas today.  This sucks because it really helps to ward off cramps underwater.

I found an air breathing slug today… Titiscania limacine.  It doesn’t count in the species list but it was cool to photograph.

Mario called me out for not wearing any “nudi drip” today, so after I showered for dinner, I put on the nudi booties.

Hannah said that I can borrow her 30mm port for Blackwater tomorrow night.  OMG, that is so nice of her!

Slug-a-pa-looza

106 - Diversidoris crocea

107 - Chromodoris strigata (with yellow)

108 - Elysia sp. 21

109 - Ardeadoris egretta

110 - Phyllidiella annulata

111 - Chromodoris magnifica

112 - Samla bicolor

113 - Goniobranchus albonares

114 - Trapania aurata

115 - Colpodaspis thompsoni

116 - Ardeadoris averni

117 - Phyllidiopsis cardinalis

118 - Phyllodesmium jakobsenae

Godfather of Blackwater

Wow, I am 2/3 of the way through my trip.  I feel dialed in and ready to up my game.  I even threw on my nudi hood:

And so did Pirjo:

We had really good discussion this morning and one of my slugs, Limenandra sp. A is new!

Terry mentioned that Adler and Hancock the Godfathers of slugging from the 1800s.  It would be fun to read up about them.

Two dives at Bethlehem were amazing.  We were finding so many slugs that we were rock swapping and I had a few queued up for me to shoot.  Yes, this is how it should be!!!  I was even singing on the boat in between dives.  At the end of the second dive, I found a little doll with a scuba mask on.  So cute.  I added it to my collection.

I had a crazy idea on the second dive that we should have trading cards for all the sluggers.  It could have their diving picture and then:

Name:

Nickname:

Hometown:

Birth Decade:

Favorite Nudibranch:

Last Camera Flooded:

I chatted with Mike Miller over lunch.  He was certified in 1977 and was slugging by 1980.  Somewhere he has a picture of all the sluggers he hung around.  He said half of them had mental problems, and the other half were gay.  Ha!  They sound like a blast!

Then he told a story about how he and Terry were diving in Northern Mindinao, Philippines in the early 90s.  They were setting to shoot mandarinfish and a Miamira alleni crawled out.  This is a crazy looking slug and was the first known sighting.  They collected it and Terry described it.

Gladys is here and diving today.  She brought me some dried mangos at lunch.  They are like spaghetti strips instead of the normal “chips”.  Yum!

Terry gave a lecture at 2pm about biodiversity here in the Coral Triangle.  He often referred to VIP which stands for the Verde Island Passage.

He also talked about Clay Carlson who named the Sagaminopteron psychedelicum.  He was an expert on Guam nudibranchs.

When referring to multiple species, we should say “spp.”  I need to add this to the little document I’m putting together.

Jim taught me a good way to keep up on the scientific papers changing the names of the nudis.  I should subscribe via Google Scholar to scientific papers about Heterobranchs which will include Nudibranchs and other slugs.  Also, I can ask for any scientific papers relating to Terry Gosliner.  

Then papers can cost money, so instead I should try using Sci-Hub which gives free access.

We did the afternoon dive on the House Reef, which was OK, then I did a Blackwater dive with Mike and Georgina.  It was cool to see how the “Godfather of Blackwater” does it.  I tried so hard to get anything in focus, but I feel like I failed miserably.  Mike recommends using my 30 mm lens instead… which I think is weird because everything I’ve heard is that 60mm is best for Blackwater.  But Mike says that is for DSLR, and because I have a 4:3 camera, I should change to 30mm.  Well, I guess I can try that if I do another Blackwater Dive… but I am really bummed that my new camera (once again) cannot seem to handle Blackwater.  I was assured that it could.  Darn it.

My dream is to see the pelagic nudibranch, Phylliroe bucephalum, on a Blackwater Dive and photograph it.  

I only had a banana before I went in, so I asked the kitchen for a peanut butter sandwich after.  Then I didn’t get to bed until really late.

Slugging along:

93 - Ceratosoma sp. 1

A Ceratosoma without the Brazilian Butt Lift.

94 - Trapania vitta

95 - Coryphellina delicata

96 - Goniodoridella savignyi

97 - Glossodoris rufomarginata

98 - Verconia alboannulata

99 - Phyllidiella granulata

100 - Caloria sp. 1

101 - Phyllidia polkadotsa

102 - Aegires villosus

103 - Moridilla brockii

104 - Aegires sp. 6

105 - Goniobranchus hintuanensis