Guardian Nature School Team Contact Blog Project Noah Facebook Project Noah Twitter

A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife

Join Project Noah!
nature school apple icon

Project Noah Nature School visit nature school

Painted Frogfish & Phyllodesmium Nudibranch

Antennarius pictus & Phyllodesmium colemani

Description:

This was a very special spotting during my recent trip to Malapascua Island, Cebu, Philippines. The Painted Frogfish is a Juvenile, around 2 cm in size. Frogfish are ambush predators. They usually sits still among coral rubbles, rocks or corals most of the time and are usually well camouflage. When hunting, they flick their lure/esca to attract smaller fish/prey and when they approaches, the Frogfish will swallows them whole, sometimes preys up to nearly their size. The Nudibranch in this Spotting is a Phyllodesmium colemani, a species of small sea slug, an aolid nudibranch, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Facelinidae. This particular nudibranch is quite tiny, around 1 cm in size. Phyllodesmium is a genus of predatory sea slugs, often show extraordinary mimicry, each species very closely resembling its prey species, which are octocorals, a kind of soft coral. They are also unusual in that they are able to utilize zooxanthellae from their prey, in a symbiotic relationship that provides them with extra nutrition from photosynthesis, hence they are one of only two groups of "solar-powered" sea slugs.

Habitat:

Tropical reefs

Notes:

As Frogfish tends to stay still most of the time, in the rare occasion, nudibranch ended up crawling on them, as shown in the pictures above. I watched in amusement as the tiny Nudibranch crawls from the tail of the Frogfish up its back towards the head, at which point, the Frogfish used its right pectoral fin to try to dislodge the nudibranch.

Species ID Suggestions



Sign in to suggest organism ID

4 Comments

AlbertKang
AlbertKang 9 years ago

Thanks, @andrew :)
and yes, so many amazing critters in the ocean and they can be of vibrant colours too, once you put lights on them.

andreweleighton
andreweleighton 9 years ago

Very nice series of pictures. The ocean always amazes me.

AlbertKang
AlbertKang 9 years ago

Thanks, @Marta.
A unique combination indeed :)

The MnMs
The MnMs 9 years ago

Nice combi!

AlbertKang
Spotted by
AlbertKang

Cebu, Philippines

Spotted on Feb 6, 2015
Submitted on Feb 16, 2015

Related Spottings

Giant Frogfish Painted Frogfish Giant Frogfish Giant Frogfish

Nearby Spottings

Devil Ray Pelagic Thresher Shark Spotted Eagle Ray Pelagic Thresher Shark
Noah Guardians
Noah Sponsors
join Project Noah Team

Join the Project Noah Team