Terry Gosliner Dendrodoris atromaculata. 
Slide ShowAfter returning from the Philippines, I was thrust back into the realities of life at the California Academy of Sciences. It was nonstop catching up on e-mail, then
dropping everything for several weeks to write a grant proposal to the National Science Foundation to support an even more extensive survey of the Philippines to determine whether the Verde Island Passage
is the richest marine area for many different groups of marine plants and animals.
Meanwhile, we were also processing the specimens that we collected in May. Our curatorial assistant carefully cataloged
all the material, organized the photographs we had taken and got things ready to allow us to take the first look at some of the specimens. Each summer at the Academy, we have a great opportunity to invite
8 to 10 undergraduate students to participate in the Summer Systematics Institute, where each student works with an individual researcher on
a research project that almost always results in publication in a scientific journal.
Kelly Laughlin, from the University of Georgia, has been working with me on dissecting some of the Philippine specimens to determine whether they are new species. She is also sequencing their DNA so that we
have molecular evidence to compare with the anatomical studies. We have determined that we have found two new species of Thordisa from the Philippines and one species from Japan that has not been studied
since it was named more than 50 years ago. We also have established that two additional species found in the Marshall Islands by a colleague are new. So we have four new species in this group of nudibranchs
that we had studied just a few years ago and already named six species from that work. We also discovered that one of the specimens I collected in May is not a member of this family but belongs in a completely
different group.
Read more…
Terry Gosliner
Chromodoris magnifica feeding on its sponge prey.
Nudibranchs are fascinating because of what they tell us about the evolutionary process, but the story of how I became interested in them is a little less sophisticated. As a child growing up in the San Francisco
Bay Area, I started visiting the California Academy of Sciences, and seeing the exhibits and aquarium are some of my earliest memories. Little did I know that I would end up working there for 28 years and
counting.
I was always raising tadpoles into frogs and caterpillars into butterflies, and finding scorpions on the hill behind our house. I would also go to the tide pools on the Marin coast. When I was in high school
and took biology, my inspirational teacher, Gordon Chan, would take students on field trips, including to tide pool areas. I told him I had seen nudibranchs in a book about marine life, but I had never been
able to find one. “No problem,” he said. “I know exactly where to find them.” He showed me two different nudibranchs and I was hooked.
Their beautiful colors, graceful shapes and amazing behavior as they glide through the water unencumbered by a shell made me want to find out more about them. I took a summer school marine biology class and
did a project on identifying nudibranchs and managed to find more than 40 species in local tide pools.
Read more…
Terry Gosliner The new Placida species.May 2622, Saturday morning – Heading north to Ligpo Island.
The quest continues. This time we are heading to one of the more remote sites to the northwest of Club Ocellaris. Lipgo Ligpo Island is a basaltic
outcrop just offshore. The main attraction here is a gently sloping reef that shifts at 50 feet down to a vertical wall that descends into the abyss.
I have only been down to about 120 ft. here but you can clearly see that it keeps on going into the dark, well below my comfort zone. On the first part of the dive I was taking Bart, Seth and Charles from
the Academy’s Steinhart Aquarium staff down below a hundred feet. They are here primarily to collect small coral fragments to propagate back in San Francisco as part of our sustainable animal
husbandry program for our living Philippine reef at the Academy.
The motivation to go below a hundred feet is to have them log deep enough dives to get the next level of scuba diving certification. As we descended, in about 90 feet of water I saw in the depths the unmistakable
shape of a Napoleon wrasse. It was there only for a few seconds and then vanished into even deeper water. The other evening, I had asked our CI friend Romy if he had seen any in recent years, as I could
not remember ever seeing one in these waters.
Read more…
Dr. Gosliner with members of the local community.Thursday
The three day dives we made were productive, and photographing and documenting took most of the afternoon. The night dive this evening was back to a familiar site, a narrow channel beside a village called
Bethlehem.
We anchored in shallow water and dropped down to 45 feet once we entered the water. Some other members of the team continued down to the deeper channel at 65 feet.
Terry Gosliner Pleurobranchus forskalii.I was helping Mike, our videographer friend, manipulate a specimen of a new species of nudibranch that we had collected earlier in the day. As he was shooting video, I noticed a dark object in the distance
that was crawling rapidly. I shined my light for a better look. The dark reddish color with white lines immediately told me it was a side gilled slug called Pleurobranchus forskalii. This one was the size of a dinner plate. After Mike finished recording, I put his photo subject back in my collecting bag to further document the species.
Read more…
Terry Gosliner Kalinga ornata.Sunday evening, May 16 — The first night dive.
When I arrived at Club Ocellaris in Anilao, a whole group of old friends, photographers and nudibranch enthusiasts had already been there for several days. The first words out of their mouths were, we
found Kalinga ornata! This is a nudibranch that is found in deep water from Australia to Japan and east to Hawaii. We had never found it in the Philippines before, and this was exciting
news. It only comes out at night so this was the objective of our first night dive.
A night dive is always an exciting event. It is exhilarating. You never know what you are going to find and it requires complete concentration and focus. Imagine rolling over the side of boat
in the pitch black. In one hand you have your underwater light. On the other you are holding your collecting bag and your camera is hanging from a lanyard on your wrist.
As you hit the water, there is a light show of bioluminescent plankton flashing in response to your intrusion into their world. Then you follow your narrow light beam until you see the sandy bottom.
This first dive was shallow, only 15 feet. We asked our dive master (appropriately named Darwin, indeed a good omen), what was the dive plan? It was rather informal; he said we jump in the water, swim
around, use up our air and come back to the boat. Works for me.
Read more…
Terry Gosliner Chromodoris annae.Saturday, May 15
On our last night in Manila as I was heading out of the hotel where friends had treated me to a delicious meal, a Bentley pulled out in the front of the hotel. From the lobby, a tall elegant older woman
strolled directly to the car. I knew it could only be one person. One of my friends leaned over and confirmed that it was Imelda Marcos. I responded without thinking, “Yes, I know. The shoes
say it all.”
I thought I had said that rather quietly, but her entire entourage wheeled around and shot me daggers. After embarrassing myself, I am now safely in Anilao watching the sun go down, preparing for a night
dive.
I have been coming here almost every year for 18 years to establish what is present on these reefs, how it is changing and how best it can best be protected. Nudibranchs are shell-less snails, stunningly beautiful
in their own right, and also a source of important clues about the biodiversity of the oceans, how that diversity is being altered by humans and what we can all do about preserving the oceans.
Read more…
