Check out the new issue (134) of Sport Diving Magazine which is now on the shelves of news agents throughout Australia and Asia. Apart from the front cover I have some some images of creatures I have been unable to identify. This doesn’t happen very often so I thought I’d get a second opinion on these species. Neville Coleman, the legend of a natural historian, writes a regular species ID feature and had a look at my photos. Two of the species, a velvetfish and a nudibranch, he had never seen before, one nudibranch he’s seen but isn’t yet named and he was able to confirm my guestimate of the identity of an unusual Inimicus species.
The velvetfish was found by my friend Yann Alfian at a random bay in Komodo where we thought it looked interesting and jumped in one night! There were a pair of these velvetfish at around 20 m and neither Yann or I had seen them before. The nudibranch was found by Paul Batuna in Kalibahi Bay in Alor on a silty site. I am pretty good with nudibranch ID but didn’t even know where to start with that one!