Wednesday 11 July 2012

Underwater colours around Tavolara, Sardinia - part 2, nudibranches

The tiny nudibranches (from "nacked" (="nudi" in Latin) and "gills" (="branch" in Greek) are some of the most colourful creatures on Earth, and of course underwater. These sea slugs have lost their shell as they have developped other protecting mechanism. They either blend in with the environment they live in or they have striking coloration which is warning that they are distasteful or poisonous...
While diving around Tavolara island one may encounter few of them as presented here. However these beauties love cold water and in summer hide into the deep waters...
 
And one big red sea star for a happy end....

13 comments:

Karen @ Pieces of Contentment said...

Nudibranches are such interesting little animals. How amazing to see them yourself. Great photos Jana!

betchai said...

oh, these are wonderful underwater colors Jana, thanks for sharing.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Jana,

Sorry about the delete. I just wanted to tell you how beautiful your photos are. The colors are so brilliant. How do you know which nudibranches are poisonous? Which color tells you that?

Joop Zand said...

Prachtige opnames en vele mooie kleuren ..... uitstekend vastgelegd Jana.

groetjes, Joop

Lies said...

Een logje waar ik naar kijk, Jana, als een kind dat naar een sprookje luistert... Om stil te worden...
Lie(f)s.

FilipBlog said...

A lot of plants and colours. Like the blue fish.

Greetings,
Filip

Jana said...

thank you dear all!
@Kris: usually the flashier the colour the more toxic (when being eaten by other animal) it is;
@Filip: its not a fish, but a homeless sea slug:-)

AVCr8teur said...

Wow, they are very unusual and colorful. Thank you for photographing them; otherwise, I did know of their existence.

To answer your questions from my post, yes the antlers are shed annually. I saw the sea otters at a local preserve about 2 hours drive south of San Francisco. Thanks for visiting!

rainfield61 said...

Life is so beautiful too in the water.

Marco Luijken said...

Hoi Jana,
Prachtig dit soort opnames!! Erg mooi ook met al die kleuren zo onder water.

Groetjes, Marco

Mandy said...

Wow, what impressive underwater photography! That is just gorgeous.

stardust said...

How nice of you that you could see such an attractive world of underwater in person. Thanks for sharing them, otherwise I couldn’t know it.

Yoko