Crazy Coloured Slugs That Brighten Up Any Phuket Scuba Diving Experience
These bizarre little creatures are on every Phuket diving site and most stand out like a sore thumb. It’s not an animal that Phuket is renowned for so if you ask your guide what the sluggy looking thing that they pointed out was you may get nudibranch as an answer and if you question further you’ll run into some well rehearsed diversion tactics.
To be fair to us there are so many species it would be impossible to know them all, add to that the variations in the same species, the constant reclassification and that names can depend on which book you look in you can understand why giving positive ID’s is generally given a wide birth. Scientists are mainly to blame for the confusion, constant squabbling over naming rights is a real pain.
So below you’ll find photos of some the more commonly found nudibranchs and their relatives around Phuket and their names at time of writing – it could potentially be completely wrong now. We’ll update the list as we get photos of more species so keep checking back to see what’s been added. If you have any nudi photos that you would like to put a name too then please feel free to send them to us at info@localdivethailand.com or post on our Facebook page. Of course the reply could be – it’s a nudibranch…
Phuket Nudibranchs
Click on the photo to get the name
Posted in Rare & Peculiar Critters on .