In the way of introduction, the group consisted of Terry Gosliner, Gary Williams, Dave Behrens representing the California Academy of Sciences, Jerry Allen, Bruce Bake,Jeff Holmes , from Tucson, Arizona , Marc Chamberlain and the Webmaster (Michael Miller) from the San Diego area , Roger Steene from Australia, and Clay Carlson from Guam. We were able to photograph/collect 216 species of opisthobranchs, thirty-eight (38) of which were new to our ongoing Philippine study, and twelve (12) were new (undescribed) period. Several are being featured as the "Branch of the Week". Scientific publication and description of the new species is being headed up by Terry Gosliner, and will be shared with you as the papers come out. In manuscript with Dave Behrens are five (5) new species of Chromodoris ! For those of you who are considering the Philippines as a dive location, I would recomend the following book "The Dive Sites of The Philippines" by Jack Jackson. I picked it up at a National Book Store in Manila but it should be available otherwise!

The first stop on our two week sea seafari in the Philippines was Club Ocellaris, a dive club near Anilao, Batangas Province, Luzon. . Enough can't be said about the service and food at this native dive resort! We set up a schedule of two (2) day dives and one night dive which the staff was gracious enough to accommodate. Typically we spent sixty (60) + minutes per dive with most of the dive sites within easy commuting time on the bancas . Afternoons and post night dives were taken up with land slide processing of specimens, documentation and record keeping. Club Ocellaris was gracious enough to let us turn half of the dining area into a laboratory for species processing. As our collections are part of a cooperative scientific study with the Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, a collecting permit issued by the Philippine government was required and strickly complied with. The main scientific objective of these annual trips to to photograph, collect and document opisthobranchs and their ecological interactions with their prey, habitat and predators. This is our sixth year of the study. Thanks to the hard work of everyone "on-board", the scientific finds have been bountiful. Pristine reef sites, such as Devil's Point on Maricaban Island offer what might be the greatest marine diversity of soft corals anywhere in the world. A species count by Gary Williams, our soft coral expert, indicates this one dive site has more species than is reported for the entire Caribbean. Helmut Debelius has proclaimed Bali to be the "capital" of sea snails in his most recent book . Batangas is certainly the most prolific area in the Philippines for sea slugs would probably give Bali a run for the money in this regard with over four hundred and fifty recorded seaslugs todate in the course of a six year study. We hope to resolve that issue by traveling to Bali next year for our yearly branching excursion. For reservations/rate information, please contact the manager, Boy Venus at: email: oc@mozcom.com

The best time is night time! From left to right we have branchers Clay Carlson, Gary Williams, Dave Behrens, Michael Miller and Terry Gosliner getting ready to make the nightly pilgrimage to some of the best "muck" diving in the world! Encounters with an assorted number of opisthobranchs are assured every dive. We're talking 20-30 species per dive! In addition to the slugs it was not unusal to find ghost pipe fish hovering in the algae, beautiful frog fish , sand crabs and shrimps of all descriptions foraging across the sand. For the first time in many years of diving, the webmaster was able to find and photograph the reclusive Harlequin Shrimp ( Hymenocera picta). As an added attraction there were at least two (2) colonies of saddleback anemonefish in place for our photographic enjoyment. Probably the high point of night diving ventures came when Marc and Bruce were finally able to locate two (2) specimens of the elusive Bobbit worm ( Eunice sp.). There is quite a bit more to be told in regard to this strange creature but that will be left to Roger Steene of Australia who was able to lure the animal out of its hole for some of the most fanastic pictures recorded of this seldom seen predatory worm. Jeff Holmes and Bruce Baker , our group video experts were able to get incredible footage of the worm spawning during full moon. Dave says it was only deficating! A ten (10) foot specimen was later captured for examination by a polychaete worm expert at the Smithsonian.

Our last stop was at Mactan Island, Cebu where we were fortunate to retain the services of Nora Ross and Tropical Island Adventures of Buyong Beach. In addition to local diving in the Mactan Island area, the group also journeyed to Cabillo Island. It was at Mactan Island that Marc Chamberlain had a night encounter with a hammerhead shark probably as a result of our crew out spearfishing while we were branching! Each of the six (6) divers on that memorable dive at a location referred to by the locals as , Dakit Dakit, or "the haunted place", thought that bump each received was just the fin of a passing diver in the darkness-never mind, no need to turn around. Now they know whose fin it was!!! Mactan and Cabillao Islands offered fantastic shear coral face drop offs. While Batangas featured its magnificent soft coral diversity, these two (2) islands stood apart in hard corals. Mactan night dives, on full moon nights, allowed divers like Behrens to complete the dive after his flashlite failed, guided only by moon light. Reef flats supported huge sea pens, coral heads teaming with Saron shrimp, and abundance of cowries and the ovulid, Calpurnus . Nora can be contacted at by snail mail at: Tropical Island Adventures, Buyong, Maribago, Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu, 6015 Philippines.

Send me mail at mdmiller@cts.com , Webmaster, The Slug Site.

Last Updated 11:30 AM on 7/20/98

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