Macro
Nudibranchs
Nudibranchia · Marine gastropod mollusks, order Nudibranchia; order-level overview of more than 3,000 described species
Nudibranchs are the reason macro divers stop covering distance. More than three thousand described species of these shell-less snails crawl the world's seafloors wearing colors that work as warnings, advertisements, and camouflage all at once, and more are named every year, with muck hotspots regularly producing animals new to science. The order splits broadly in two: dorids, carrying a rosette of gills on the back, many recycling sponge toxins into chemical defense; and aeolids, fringed in tentacle-like cerata that store working stinging cells stolen from the hydroids they eat. Rhinophores, the paired head antennae, smell the water for prey and mates. Most species live weeks to a year, so casts turn over fast and no two months on the same site produce the same list. Slow to a crawl and the sand starts producing.
Dónde y cuándo ver uno
"Residente" significa que la mayoría de las inmersiones en ese destino tienen encuentros con ellos; "estacional" significa que su presencia es fiable en los meses indicados; cualquier otra cosa es un extra, no algo con lo que contar.
| Destino | Fiabilidad | Meses | Notas |
|---|---|---|---|
| AnilaoPhilippines | Resident: seen on most dives | Todo el año | |
| Lembeh StraitIndonesia | Resident: seen on most dives | Todo el año | |
| Dumaguete, Dauin & Apo IslandPhilippines | Resident: seen on most dives | Todo el año | |
| Poor Knights IslandsNew Zealand | Resident: seen on most dives | Todo el año | |
| British ColumbiaCanada | Resident: seen on most dives | Todo el año | |
| Milne BayPapua New Guinea | Resident: seen on most dives | Todo el año |
El mejor mes, de un vistazo
Comprendiéndolos
Hábitat: Every bottom type divers visit (reef, rubble, sand, kelp, jetty piles, mud), wherever each species' prey grows; the order as a whole ranges from tide pools to the deep sea.
Rango: All oceans, polar to tropical; the Coral Triangle holds the richest shallow-water diversity known.
Comportamiento: Slow, chemically defended browsers; hermaphrodites that mate side by side and lay coiled egg ribbons. Aeolid species store working stinging cells from the hydroids they eat.
Dieta: Specialists almost to a species: sponges, hydroids, bryozoans, tunicates, anemones, eggs, or other sea slugs.
Tamaño: normalmente alrededor de 0.03 m; documentado hasta 0.6 m (order-wide range; most diver-found species are 1–6 cm, while the Spanish dancer reaches about 60 cm).
Cómo comportarse cerca de uno
Shoot without touching or relocating: posed slugs on borrowed backgrounds are the macro world's staged wildlife problem. Keep strobe sessions short per animal.
Conservación
Almost none have been evaluated for the IUCN Red List; their fortunes track the sponges, hydroids, and other prey they depend on.
Puntos conocidos por avistamientos
Los puntos destacados fueron registrados para esta especie por nuestros editores; los números son registros de ocurrencia de GBIF anotados en un radio de unos 5 km de un punto desde 1990.
Ver
Desde los canales oficiales
Wildlife of Monterey | New film in our auditorium
Live Aviary Cam | Monterey Bay Aquarium
Live Aviary Cam | Monterey Bay Aquarium
Los vídeos son enlaces insertados a los canales de sus propios creadores. No alojamos nada y acreditamos todo.