Echinaster sepositus sea star with Parazoanthus axinellae zoanthids.

From June 1-9 I was in France on a a two-fold mission. The first half of the trip was spent in the south of France in Marseille and the surrounding area. I stayed with my good friend Yvan Perez,  a professor at the Institute of Mediterranean Ecology and Paleo-Ecology at the University of Provence in Marseille. Yvan acted as my dive guide and translator as we searched along the coast for the temperate Eastern Atlantic/Mediterranean corallimorph Corynactis viridis.

The second half of the trip was spent in Strasbourg in the Alsace region of France near the German border where I gave a lecture on the Caribbean corallimorph species at the annual convention of Recif France, which is the society of French reef aquarists. Over the next couple of weeks I will be posting a series of articles on this trip, specifically the quest for Corynactis viridis…

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