News

One of our members, Erwin Kodiat, an underwater photographer from Bali, Indonesia, recently launched a new image-based nudibranch identification website.

According to the mission statement: "Nudi Pixel is an online resource for nudibranch and sea slug identification using photographs.This is a useful resource for all nudibranch enthusiasts like scuba divers, snorkelers, underwater photographers, naturalists, dive guides, and for educational purpose. This is basically a repository of nudibranch photographs from all over the world, and we further proceed the data to make it suitable for species identification."

The site is pretty cool. I can imagine a downloadable version of this for your mobile device that makes carrying ID books into the field obsolete. You can submit images of Nudis to help build the collaborative online identification guide. It does seem like the site only allows you to tag the images from Southeast Asian destinations, but I'm sure the next iteration will expand those options.

I've found that so many underwater photographers pride themselves on knowing the scientific names of as many nudibranch species possible. Identifying new species is almost a sport in its own right! We all love those little buggers! Nudipixel also seeks help in identifying some unidentified nudibranch species or correcting misidentified species. So if you're a bonafide self selected Nudi expert - check it out and add your knowledge to the guide.

In its early age, Nudi Pixel has become one of the resources for many nudibranch experts like Dave Behrens, Neville Coleman, Helmut Debelius and Rudie H. Kuiter to collect nudibranch photographs for their soon to be released books. Images submitted remain the property of the photographer and any image usage will of course be negotiated.