Nudibranch reflections

On 3/7/2023 at 5:03 PM, bvanant said:

If you remember the David Doubilet spread in Nat Geo. Even he got major grief for moving nudis. 
I know several people in the marine biology world that use nudibranchs for learning research, constant handling seems not to bother them much. In any case, I am unapologetic about moving slugs unless they are eating, mating or laying eggs. Here they mostly are sitting on the bottom minding their business so a few turns in the spotlight should be fine.

Bill

I was in Lembeh (at the same resort, KBR, now closed) when David shot that spread. Many of those nudis were collected from Nudi Falls...

There were 2 or 3 guides finding the specimens - each one was replaced back where it was found, and all the nudis were handled very gently, and only moved for a few minutes... (he also had tanks shuttled to him for several of the more lengthy sessions).

The best lesson learned that week? His Nat Geo equipment guy had a pretty cool job. Keep the photo gear functioning, design & repair the backdrop, and dive as he wanted for those couple of weeks.

The discussions at dinner were all about the ethics of this effort - but getting a peek at some of the test shots was awesome.

Fascinating! Yeah, a very cool job. 

I hadn’t heard that KBR had closed. I was the dive manager there a decade ago. 

On 3/7/2023 at 9:41 AM, bvanant said:

I often take a home built stage when diving for nudibranchs and often get a lot of people telling me I am evil for actually moving them.

 

It's not so much the stage as is the the dressing room you make them use that seems to fly in the face of ethical treatment of animals.

It does give me an idea, though.  What about nudibranch leashes?  You think they would be a big seller?  Certainly more human than using those little shock prods that we all have been using.

(My apologies to all for my brief foray into silliness)

2 hours ago, Draq said:

What about nudibranch leashes?  You think they would be a big seller? 

I don't know. Can you train a nudibranc? Catch? Fetch? Sit? 

"Sit" should be easy.  Fetch and catch would require at least doubles, if not surface-supplied air.

On a more serious note, nudibranchs have been instrumental in understanding some aspects of learning. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.2307/1541236 is an interesting paper on such things. 

In terms of changing rooms for costuming, my typical approach is to have the nudibranch crawl onto a rough wooden chopstick, then crawl off onto the stage. The felt stage appears to be quite nice for most nudibranchs, they crawl around on it seemingly at ease (rhino and gills fully open), the glass stage is fine for some, others seem to not recognize something so smooth as natural. 

Bill