Happy new year’s bubbles chasing Nudibranchs! This is what we wish you all from Twofish Amed! This week we said goodbye to 2018 with a couple of nice dives involving Joanna and Paul, two of our guests passionate about muck diving and photo. If there is a creature that we find in both muck and coral dives, it’s the astonishing nudibranchs. You know that weird slug-like thing your instructor pointed at you with great enjoyment during your Open Water course and looking at it you just thought “what the hell? Why is he pointing at that?” He did it because nudibranchs are amazing in terms of diversity, colors, shape and even toxicology! Nudibranchs (nudibranchia) are the pokemon of our ocean! They are marine gasteropods classified in two major groups, the Anthobranchia/Doridoidea and Cladobranchia and we can find them litterally everywhere in the in the ocean from Artica to Antartica. Nudibranch comes from the Latin nudus, naked, and the Greek βρανχια, brankhia, gills, Basically, their gills are outside their body.

Depending on their diet, the colors of two individuals of the same species can change which make their identification labourous at some point. By now about 3000 valid species are known varying on sizes from a few millimeters to several centimeters, on shape, colors… you start to get the point comparing them with pokemon right? Nudibranchs also have an interesting ability which really interests scientists. They actually are able to metabolize several toxins and build them up on top of each other! The more poison they eat the more toxic they are.

So if you want to get more into the hunt of these beauties, come and visit us in Amed, it will our pleasure to search for it!