Another unusual find at this year's Nudibranch Festival at Crystal Blue Resort in Anilao, Philippines, was this little bugger, Aegires flores.
It's yellow (although this color is variable) body is covered with yellow flat topped tubercles. The flat topped appendages surrounding the gill, give the appearance of flowers, giving the authors of this species the idea to name it "flores."
One of several new species a Aegires described by Shireen Fahey and Terry Gosliner, in their 2004 paper, it is known to feed on calcareous sponges.
An architect who retired from practice in 2011, Jim Anderson is fascinated by the incredibly colourful world that lies just a short distance from the shore around the coast of his home in Scotland. He learned to dive there and very quickly discovered the diversity and extravagance of life that the grey sea does well to disguise. Photography started as a means of recording these sights - to try in some way to let others into this wonderful new world that was opening up. He commenced diving in 1987 and has recorded over 4000 dives, over 2200 around Scotland, mostly with a camera in hand and has developed special skills in capturing images that have been widely published in national diving publications and identification guides. He is the proprietor of nudibranch.org the portal to his extensive nudibranch and other web sites covering his home country and the destinations he has visited in the Philippines, Indonesia, Maldives, Red Sea, Kenya, Ireland and in the Caribbean. He is a 1st Class Examiner with the Scottish Sub Aqua Club and delivers Nudibranch Identification courses on behalf of the UK Marine Conservation Society."
Send Jim mail at jander4454@gmail.com WEBMASTER'S NOTES: Jim is being rather modest about the rigors of diving for sea slugs in his home waters. Although not mentioned the reader can be assured that getting geared up in the waters off Scotland is a challenge in itself! Our hats are off to you Jim!
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