Photo by Guido Zsilavecz
Guido Zsilavecz
With its striking colouration and elegant body cape dorids were appreciated by many divers and photographers. Several years ago however they became rarer and rarer, and a few of us remarked that we were not seeing any. More or less at the same time we started seeing inkspot nudibranchs, initially considered to be rare and sought after on numerous dives, but suddenly very common at certain parts of Castle Rocks. Its white body, often with subtle shades of dark yellow, covered by those brilliant purple spots reminiscent of ink drops on blotting paper, we considered a more than adequate visual replacement.
Then, in about May this year, we started seeing the cape dorid again. First at A-Frame, but then also at Windmill and Castle Rocks. On a dive recently we saw five within a short space of time. At the same time dives at Castle Rock revealed several inkspot nudibranchs, but somehow not as many as before. Is this coincidence or are these two events completely unrelated? Or were we simply not looking carefully enough, missing the cape dorids that were there all the time? We are not sure, but as several of us noticed this independently, there may be something to it after all. In any case, it is nice to see the beautiful cape dorids once again!
Nudibranchs of Southern Africa - a guide to the opisthobranch molluscs of southern Africa, T Gosliner, 1987.
Two Oceans, A guide to the marine life of Southern Africa, GM Branch, CL Griffiths, ML Branch and LE Beckley, 1994.