The boulder field at Naples Point, on Santa Barbara's Gaviota coast, was one of my family's go-to sites for nudibranchs while we lived at Midland School in the Santa Ynez Valley. My twin sons Ziggy and Will began accompanying me in my search for nudibranchs there in 2008, quickly developed laser-sharp search images, and were soon contributing significantly to the results. Together, we wrote and published the scientific paper linked below, the first of four planned papers, one each on the heterobranch sea slugs from a different site in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties. Will and Ziggy are fine writers and editors.

In our paper we first review the literature on the heterobranchs known from Santa Barbara County. We then describe our study site at Naples Point in detail and present our results on the species composition, abundance, and seasonal and interannual variation in abundance. During this study we recorded 12,193 individuals from 55 species, 48 of which were nudibranchs. These are listed in Table 1, on pp. 284-85. Since 2019 and through 9 June 2023, I have made seven more trips to Naples Point and recording a total of 223 additional individuals and no additional species.

Heterobranchs are often sparse and difficult to find at Naples Point, usually requiring a lot of rock rolling (and righting!), and many of the species are small. But sometimes they were abundant, large, and couldn't be missed, as when Black sea hares and Gould's bubble snails just exploded in abundance during the 2014-2016 marine heat wave.

Here's our paper: https://drive.google.com/file/d/17RTXDuGLe13k_HNXjwsk_uKij2eQcvvL/view?usp=drive_link

@anudibranchmom, @chilipossum, @passiflora4, @chloe_and_trevor, @kestrel, @rebeccafay, @nudibitch, @kueda, @dpom, @craigahoover, @lemurdillo, @lorri-gong, @lutea11, @alanarama3, @alex_bairstow, @imlichentoday, @skatingflamingo

Posted on June 22, 2023 05:24 PM by jeffgoddard