Cuthona cocoachroma
Williams & Gosliner, 1979

Order: NUDIBRANCHIA
Suborder: AEOLIDINA
Family: Tergipedidae

DISTRIBUTION

Knnown from Pacific coast of Nth America [Washington to California].

PHOTO

Middle Cove, Cape Arago, Oregon, USA., June 1984. on hydroid prey, Thuiaria sp. Photo: Jeff Goddard.

This delicate aeolid is known from Duxbury Reef, just north of San Francisco (Williams & Gosliner, 1979) to the Olympic Pennisula, Washington (Goddard, et al., 1997). It reaches nearly 20 mm in length and can be recognized by its white-frosted cephalic tentacles and long rhinophores, white tipped cerata lacking spots, and chocoalate brown cerata cores. Cuthona cocoachroma specializes on a single species of Thuiaria and preys on this thecate hydroid by using its radula to rasp through the outer covering of the hydroid, and then sucking out the soft inner tissues (Goddard et al., 1997; Goddard, 1998; unpublished observations). Cuthona cocoachroma lays white, cord-shaped egg masses on Thuiaria sp. and like its sympatric congeners, hatches as planktotrophic veliger larvae with inflated egg-shaped shells (Goddard, 1991).

References:
• Goddard, J.H.R. (1991) Unusually large polar bodies in an aeolid nudibranch: a novel mechanism for producing extra-embryonic yolk reserves. Journal of Molluscan Studies 57(4, supplement): 143-152.
• Goddard, J.H.R. (1998) A summary of the prey of nudibranch molluscs from Cape Arago, Oregon. Opisthobranch Newsletter 24: 11-14.
• Goddard, J.H.R., Wayne, T.A. & Wayne, K.R. (1997) Opisthobranch mollusks and the pulmonate limpet Trimusculus reticulates (Sowerby, 1835) from the outer Washington coast. The Veliger 40: 292-297.
• Williams, G.C. & Gosliner, T.M. (1979) Two new species of nudibranchiate mollusks from the west coast of North America, with a revision of the family Cuthonidae. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 67: 203-223.

Authorship details
Goddard, J.H.R., 2003 (January 20) Cuthona cocoachroma Williams & Gosliner, 1979. [In] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/factsheet/cuthcoco

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