304 fish species in TARP

31st May 2008 was gorgeous - blue skies and calm waves; this sea hare Aplysia dactylomela (a kind of giant sea slug from the family APLYSIIDAE) also seemed to think so as it charged across the sand off Sapi island to this clump of algae before grinding it to bits.

I gorged on my snorkelling session too: a better photo to upload with an improved description for one of my fish ID panels (Thalassoma lunare), a youthful colour variant to add for another (Lutjanus fulviflamma), an un-logged juvenile for a previously adult-only species (Halichoeres argus) and an adult photo for a species previously represented only by a juvenile (Pomacentrus chrysurus). Incidentally this caused me to concede that I had mistakenly recorded another such adult previously as Pomacentrus armillatus (which I have now removed from my checklist). Amazingly, this single snorkel session added 6 new species too, which (counting the discarded species) brings my total of observed species in the park to 304. Species added were Cephalopholis microprion (which stimulated a slight modification to my description of Cephalopholis cyanostigma), Cheilio inermis, Chromis viridis, Ctenochaetus striatus, Neoglyphidodon oxyodon and Pteragogus guttatus.