a purple dirona and an Eubranchus sanjuanensis

Fish & Invertebrate sightings and descriptions, hosted by resident NWDC ID expert Janna Nichols (nwscubamom).
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dphershman
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a purple dirona and an Eubranchus sanjuanensis

Post by dphershman »

I did a couple of dives in the San Juans this past Sunday and had a couple of interesting finds. The first was a violet colored Dirona albolineata. Down here in south puget sound they're typically white or somewhat salmon colored, but this is the second time that I've seen one that was violet purple. The first time it was at the Victoria Harbor Jetty, this time it was at Long Island Wall, near south Lopez. Must be something in the diet here.

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The next discovery didn't happened until I got home and looked closely at something odd looking just below a grunt sculpin's chin.

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Looking closely at full resolution I saw that there was a Eubranchus sanjuanensis perfectly suspended just behind the Grunt Sculpin's chin. There's simply no way that I could ever have seen something so tiny without the aid of the macro lens.

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Lots of lovely Longhorn Nudibranchs Hermissenda crassicornis as well.

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and a couple of Dendronotus alba, also showing a faint violet color. We used to call these D. diversicolor, but now they're just lumped together as D. alba.

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Dan
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LCF
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Re: a purple dirona and an Eubranchus sanjuanensis

Post by LCF »

Lovely photos! When I took my NW Marine Life ID class from Laurel LeFever, he told us that he often comes home and looks at his photos, and finds things in them he didn't realize were there when he took the shot. Just a reminder that life is EVERYWHERE in the water!
"Sometimes, when your world is going sideways, the second best thing to everything working out right, is knowing you are loved..." ljjames
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