Northwest Dive Club

Few more snapshots of Keystone Lingcod which I associate with cleaning activity,
although active cleaning was not observed this time.

and people are scared of sharks instead of these?? :p

the other night at Keystone a massively huge lingcod freaked the heck out of me. I was swimming behind Tubesnout when this great big red shadow came buzzing up from behind me to check us out. She passed beside me, dived into a rock cave and was gone before my buddy could see, but wow... big...

And for fellow nudibranch aficionados - there is no more guessing if that little slug
is a Colorful Dendronotus or a White Dendronotus . Dendronotus diversicolor is dead.
They are all WHITE DENDRONOTUS -Dendronotus albus now.
Also no more Dendronotus frondosus in our waters. That one lives in the Atlantic Ocean.
Our slug now bears an old Mac Farland name - Dendronotus venustus...

I had heard that they were consolidating albus and diversicolor . . . but why did they reclassify frondosus? Do you know?

LCF wrote:I had heard that they were consolidating albus and diversicolor . . . but why did they reclassify frondosus? Do you know?

From the Journal of Molluscan Studies:
" The name D. venustus is resurrected for eastern Pacific populations previously considered to be D. frondosus. Pacific D. venustus display consistent morphological and molecular differences from Atlantic D. frondosus. The molecular phylogeny presented here is not robust enough to shed light on the evolution and biogeography of Dendronotus, but preliminary evidence indicates that the Pacific species of Dendronotus are not a monophyletic group, because Arctic and Atlantic species are nested within them. "

Thanks Jan, I knew that the D. albus thing was in the works but hadn't had it confirmed yet. I didn't know they were doing D. frondosus though.

I am not however going back and changing all the ones on my site.

Bummer, I liked the way Dendronotus diversicolor rolled off the tongue. Why couldn't they have kept THAT name and nuked albus?? We may never know....

- Janna

I keep coming across Lingcod with eye injuries. I see Lingcod chasing each other occasionally,
but did not witness any real fights. Yet.

Jan K wrote:I keep coming across Lingcod with eye injuries. I see Lingcod chasing each other occasionally,
but did not witness any real fights. Yet.

We saw a seagull peck a pigeon to death at Langley today Jan... I thought of your camera, right after I thought "eewww"

Blaiz wrote: We saw a seagull peck a pigeon to death at Langley today Jan... I thought of your camera, right after I thought "eewww"

So that is what I am perceived as ? Bad news paparazzi ?
When I arrived at the Possession Point State Park beach, the warning sign confirmed what I read in the local paper earlier -
toxic shellfish in Whidbey waters. Well firstly I collect critters with a camera, not goody bag and secondly, there are
not shellfish on the Finger's clay walls to speak off. In the murky shallows I spotted couple what I think were Padded sculpins and in the really thick miso soup a Penpoint gunnel wrapped in Sea lettuce. Only below 15 feet it opened up and I had a pleasant dive...

What a GORGEOUS little warbonnet!

nwscubamom wrote:Bummer, I liked the way Dendronotus diversicolor rolled off the tongue. Why couldn't they have kept THAT name and nuked albus?? We may never know....

- Janna

In taxonomy, priority rules (and tongue rolling doesn't). D. albus was named in 1966 and D. diversicolor in 1970; since they're now considered the same, the earlier name (albus) has priority.

Diversacolor is a much better fit since they come in such widely varying colors and some have little or no white but popular vote just ain't going to get us anywhere. That doesn't keep us armatures from using Diversacolor as the common name though.

That little mosshead has a unique little red bush that I haven't seen before.

I am not doing too well on the nudibranch front lately. I did find a rather large Red Dendronotid
on one of the sunken pilings in the middle of the tire reef. Interestingly, I have never seen a small
version of this slug, I mean less then 4 inches ...

here I tried a "self portrait" - it is a big slug !

Nice work on the rufus Jan. I like the self portrait. It give a good prospective of the size of these guys. They are one of my favorite nudies. I really like the egg masses too. They are also huge! They are the only nudie I know of that has communal egg masses. Some of them consist of the product of dozens of laying sessions by multiple slugs! like this one. Note the little strings that attach the coils to the rocks.

Thanks Dusty, yes the white spaghetti are indeed D.rufus eggs ...
And another Critter from the world of old tires - Quillback rockfish with Copper giving orders ..

Fun cartoon on the first one, Jan!

I always love the spring, when the baby rockfish seem to congregate in any large collection of metridiums. It's as though they are saying, "Don't eat me, you'll get stung!"

The Painted Greenlings just keep on laying eggs at Langley Tire Reef. I remember taking
pictures of them guarding eggs back in May.. They sure like the rusty shackles which
provide a perfect hiding place for the eggs..

Love the Quillbacks in a row, with that ol' Copper yelling at them. That was interesting stuff about their migration/site fidelity.

The Painted Greenling eggs are cool too - so how long do you figure before they hatch?

- Janna

nwscubamom wrote: The Painted Greenling eggs are cool too - so how long do you figure before they hatch? - Janna

I will try to keep an eye on them, but Langley is not my most frequent dive site..
Today, after 1274 dives in the Pacific Northwest waters, I finally found my first Pacific Spiny LUMPSUCKER !
It was tiny and did not sport the colors and textures I enjoyed seeing on pictures taken by others here on the
NWDC forum, but I settle for this one It wasn't swimming around, but the kelp blade it was resting on did.
In 15 feet of water at high noon. I now can resign my membership in the "Never seen Lumpsucker Club".

Congrats Jan! Cute little dude. Extra points for getting some nice clean shots and from every angle too. I like the glowing eyes in the first two pix.

YAAAAAAY JAN!!!

I know you've been wanting to catch one of those guys for a LONG time now!!

Whooo hooo! Congrats Jan! Great pictures!

Jan, you really need to make a trip over to the mainland next winter, and let Bob take you on a Lumpsucker dive at Redondo. You'll see a whole bunch of them, but their silly faces and ridiculous method of propulsion never stop bringing a smile to a diver's face.

Thank you all, it sure is fun to be able to add new critter to the list.
I would love to join the King of the Lumpies Bob in his Lumpsucker kingdom.
I will definitely need somebody with better eyesight to point them out for me ..
Are they all this small at the Dond ?