Phil Alderslade

Joined: Dec 3, 2018 Last Active: Aug 13, 2020 iNaturalist

I live in Australia. Specialising in octocoral taxonomy, I began my anthozoan affair with both hard and soft corals in the early 1970's in Brisbane, and then spent about 9 years with a marine pharmacology lab based in Sydney collecting marine organisms in the search for bio-active compounds. I followed this with 25 years as Curator of coelenterates (how long before someone with a fistful of knowledge wants to challenge the use of that term?) in the northern most city of Darwin. From two seasons, wet and dry, to four seasons, one of which is winter, we moved way down to Hobart, the most southern city in the country, in 2006. Yes - I did notice the change in temperature. Since then, semi-retired as a part-time Research Scientist for CSIRO Oceans & Atmosphere, I have been identifying the deep water octocorals collected, mostly from seamounts, as part of the project to document Australia's marine biodiversity: supplemented by working on the New Zealand collections of our friends and colleagues at NIWA in Wellington.

Co-author with Katharina Fabricius of:--
Soft Corals and Sea Fans : A Comprehensive Guide to the Tropical Shallow-Water Genera of the Central-West Pacific, the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea. pp 264. Australian Institute of Marine Science, 2001

doctocoral is not following anyone.