Hypselodoris californiensis from Santa Catalina Island

April 14, 2006
From: Jim Lyle

Dear Dr. Rudman:

While browsing throught the forum, an activity that I enjoy overly much according to my wife, I noticed that you only had one image of Hypselodoris californiensis.

A couple of years ago, we were diving at Catalina Island on the wreck of the Valiant when Judy Carlson found a new (to us) nudibranch, two large specimens within a metre of each other. Unfortunately, Roger's pictures came out a little blurry, but this was obviously a new discovery and images were quickly dispatched to Dave and Mike for identification. We were told that it was H. californiensis - a nudibranch that was commonly seen in Southern California waters thirty years ago, but had not been reported since. Two weeks later, we took the boat over to Catalina to see if we could find them again. We were successful, the two individuals were within a metre of each other, on the sandy bottom. Our pictures came out much better the second time. That was the one and only time that we have encountered this colorful branch.

Locality: Santa Catalina Island, 30 metres, CA, USA, Pacific Ocean, 03 March 2003, wreck/sandy bottom. Length: 15 cm. Photographer: Jim Lyle.

Best,
Jim Lyle

jlyle@adelphia.net

Lyle, J.L., 2006 (Apr 14) Hypselodoris californiensis from Santa Catalina Island. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/16322

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