Sea slug species named for Stuart man who discovered it

One day before his 62nd birthday, Bob Rice learned his name had become part of scientific history.

A new species of nudibranch, a sort of sea slug, has been named for him. It is all recorded in an article published in the Bulletin of Marine Science by the Rosensteil School of Marine and Atmospheric Science in Miami, released in mid-September.

According to the article, the new species of nudibranch found by Rice will be in the records as the Roboastra ricei, the last word being Rice’s name in Latin.

“That’s kind of neat,” said Rice. “There are not a lot of things left to discover on this Earth and to find one is really something.”

On March 4, 2006, Rice, a licensed tropical fish collector, was scuba diving about five miles offshore from the Coast Guard LORAN Tower in Hobe Sound, collecting tropical fish for sale, when he saw a colorful creature come out of the reef.

“I didn’t know what it was, but I popped it into the bucket I had for invertebrates, and went to the surface,” Rice said.

When he showed the creature to others, no one else knew what it was...[TCPalm.com]