Water temp around Palos Verdes has been 52 - 56 degrees, with intermittent plankton blooms. Nudibranch egg clusters of countless different species dominate the landscape this month. I've never seen so many eggs at one time, even considered spending an entire dive documenting all the different types of egg masses.

Photos from three of our favorite local dive sites:

GOLF BALL REEF

The kelp amphipod, Peramphithoe humeralis

Chestnut cowry tending eggs.

Doriopsilla fulva

Berthella californica laying eggs.

LITTLE REEF

Sargo

Black croakers

Here's an example of an adult black croaker adult that spontaneously changed its colors to the juvenile striped pattern. (See Milton Love, 2011).

The exceedingly small eggs of the snail, Amphissa versicolor. ID thanks to Dr. Jeff Goddard.

It's fun to watch the black dorid, Polycera atra, laying eggs and feeding on Bugula neritina.

Polycera tricolor

Polycera tricolor

On this dive, Kevin found a third representative from the genus Polycera that is not often seen here.
Polycera hedgpethi.

Kevin also found this nearly transparent, 2mm wisp of a nudi laying eggs.
Ancula gibbosa

GARDEN SPOT

Examples of the light color variation of the black dorid, Polycera atra:
A juvenile

An adult Polycera atra

An adult Polycera atra laying eggs

Kevin found this grain-of-rice-size Diaphorodoris lirulatocauda.

Austraeolis stearnsi It's interesting that we only find these neon-orange fellas on Garden Spot, the nearby Marineland platform, and the distant Star of Scotland wreck.

Phil handed me this Aegiris albopunctatus; they always remind me of a nubby rug.

• Re: Chillin' on the Reefs seahunt 19:07:06 06/23/15 (0)