TRACC Borneo Volunteers: #pontoh

18.5.16

Creature Feature - The Solar Powered Nudibranch

the solar powered nudibranch
Photo by Basil Bohn

A dash of divers descend down to shallow depths – word has spread that two solar powered nudibranch’s mating have been spotted on the house reef. Incredible creatures who receive the majority of their energy from the sun, the solar powered nudibranch harvests zooxanthellae algae from the soft coral upon which it sometimes feeds. In a fortunate feat of nature, a symbiotic relationship ensues. The photosynthetic zooxanthellae lives safely in the Solar Powered’s digestive system, in turn providing its host with energy from the sun. The long, flat, wide, and translucent leaf like cerata stemming from the nudibranch’s body are veined with exposed digestive system showing a speckling of zooxanthellae beneath a thin layer of translucent skin. The exposed zooxanthellea allow the solar powered nudibranch to receive the energy of the sun and give the solar powered a resemblance of a living moving flower.

The mating solar powered pair rest in the shadows of a TRACC built artificial reef (a teepee); reproduction organs planted in each other at opposite ends to form a circle of gently intertwined bodies in a fanciful mess of softly glowing cerata. They will stay in this circular act of creation until fertilized, laying up to 1 million eggs in a rose patterned spiral somewhere along the reef crest, giving life to a new generation of naturally fantastical creatures.

Nudi = naked, branch = gills, appropriate Latin for creatures making love in the oceanic sun.

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If you want to help with any marine conservation activity, please
check our website http://tracc.org or e-mail info@tracc-borneo.org

For more updates on TRACC check out our Facebook, Twitter or Google +

More Marine conservation projects

Reef conservation would not be possible without generous financial support from

GEF /SGP for Malaysia who are helping our community activities and coralreefcare.com who generously provided materials to build the new reefs.

If visits to Tracc are not possible then please help with financial support and follow their projects on Facebook.

4.4.16

Creature Feature - Pontoh's Pygmy Seahorse

Photo by Basil Bohn

Enigmatic by nature Pontoh’s Pygmy Seahorse fits like a puzzle piece into the drifting, moving, swaying landscape of her hidden hydroid home. She appears fragile with a figure the dimension of my thumbnail. Yet, she moves with relative confidence and ease. Her twiney tail wraps tightly around the base of one hydroid, before she pushes off and moves in one great leap of her tiny frame, tail grasping the next hydroid base to tightly anchor once again.

Found beneath the shelter of the wreck she is well hidden from potential dangers of ocean currents and predators as she nestles into her home. Her creamy beiges and browns mirroring the mossy world which she inhabits, difficult to spot by divers and predators alike. With no teeth and no stomach she must constantly prey on the tiny crustaceans and planktonic organisms. Watch long enough and you will see, a teensy snout protrude to slurp up her tiny prey.

Photo by Basil Bohn

This charismatic creature, also called the weedy pygmy seahorse, was only discovered in 2008. Once again, the small Island of Pom Pom and TRACC has been privileged with rarity and majesty in a diminutive form.

More Marine conservation projects

Reef conservation would not be possible without generous financial support from

GEF /SGP for Malaysia who are helping our community activities and coralreefcare.com who generously provided materials to build the new reefs.

If visits to Tracc are not possible then please help with financial support and follow their projects on Facebook.