Diario de blogie

I've just uploaded more than 20 observations of sea anemones -- at least, I'm assuming all of them are actiniarians -- and most of them are in need of identification. Through the years I've simply labeled my photos "unknown sea anemone" (except, of course, for the popular ones, like Heteractis magnifica and Entacmaea quadricolor). In the beginning, sea anemones just didn't hold my interest, hence the dearth of scientific names in this collection.

But after reviewing my photos with the "unknown" tag, I realized just recently that I'd already collected so many unidentified sea anemones, and that they come in intriguing and even unexpected shapes and forms and colors. Hopefully the iNat community can help me get most of them identified!

Let's face it, even with their rather sanitized common name, sea cucumbers just bring out the heebie-jeebies in most people. Heck, some of them were even named 'horrendous' by taxonomists. Personally, I used to have a minor phobia of cukes, because I almost drowned as a kid and the last memory of that incident that stuck in my mind was of a sea cucumber that had wrapped itself around my leg.

Needless to say, I've long gotten over that. Especially since I came on board iNat after being encouraged by Frédéric Ducarme and Gustav Paulay. They got a number of my u/w photos of sea cucumbers identified soon after posting, that I went ahead and read up on those species. And discovered so many interesting things about holothurids.

Well, now that I know more than before about sea cucumbers, I'm excited to take more pictures of them in situ and share them on iNat. More to come!

I've finally gotten around to populating my iNat account with my observations, and I've been at it for a few days now. In my personal database are hundreds of upload-worthy wildlife photos, stretching all the way to 2011. It's going to take me a few more days to make it even halfway through.

My concentration is marine life. I might post something from above water in the future, but for now I really want to stick to the critters I see when I go scuba diving. I dive around the islands of Samal in the Philippines, but I sometimes find myself in other underwater parts of the country. My objective here is to show the world the beauty and richness of my country's marine flora and fauna.