COMMENTS & OBSERVATIONS

Strong winds have prevented us from diving recently, but hopefully we have seen the last of the cyclones for the season. We decided to take advantage of the drop in wind speeds to explore a new site that we have snorkelled previously. The site has a number of sizeable rocky outcrops covered in algae and some patches of seagrass nearby so we anticipated finding a few Aplysia spp. and possibly some sacoglossans. We were therefore a little disappointed that we failed to find any of these species however the presence of the gymnodorids suggests that there may be more species present than we were able to find.

The species we did find were very small as evidenced by the photo of the Gymnodoris sp. 10 below. This species floated off when being photographed and was ‘captured’ on Julie’s glove. Its size can be gauged by comparing it with the grains of sand in the photo.

Taxonomic Diversity:
All were nudibranch dorids, 3 phanerobranchs (non-retractile gill) and a single cryptobranch (retractable gill). The Gymnodoris must be hunting something.

Our Historical data:
First dive at this site so no comparable data available.

Guide to Symbols:
+++ New Species
+ First time sighted in Whitsundays
# Most commonly sighted at this site with %

TOTAL SPECIES SIGHTED: 4

DIVE IMAGES GALLERY

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