Aplysia in Thailand

December 1, 2003
From: Dunyaporn Trachootham

Dear Sir
I'm a Thai student who now study Ph.d in Biomedical Sciences in Houston, Texas, USA. Now I work with a research group who use Aplysia as a model for nervous system study. However, I have commitment to come back to Thailand in the future.

Therefore, I would like to know whether I can find any Sea-hares like Aplysia, bubble shells like Bulla, side-gilled slugs like Pleurobranchaea in Thailand. I would need enough for research study. Could you give me some suggestions?
Dunyaporn Trachootham

dunyatra@yahoo.com

Trachootham, D., 2003 (Dec 1) Aplysia in Thailand. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/11533

Dear Dunyaporn,
There are certainly species of all that group that live in Thai waters but there are no guarantees that you could find an appropriate number of animals when you needed them. To provide a guaranteed supply of Aplysia for research was the main reason that facilities like the NIH-Aplysia Resource Facility in Miami, Florida were established. [http://www.rsmas.miami.edu/groups/sea-hares/]. They ship more than 25,000 captive bred animals a year to laboratories. I am not an expert in the field of nervous system research but I understand there are problems with using wild-collected animals because they habituate differently to captivity and so it is difficult to have suitable control specimens. It is also difficult to make comparisons between specimens whose history is unknown.

It is probably not possible to import captive bred animals when you return to Thailand so I would think it would be valuable if you were to spend some time before you returned to Thailand learning some basic techniques on keeping and breeding some of these animals in captivity. This would mean that when you returned to Thailand, you could collect some material locally and start your own captive bred colony.
Best wishes
Bill Rudman

Rudman, W.B., 2003 (Dec 1). Comment on Aplysia in Thailand by Dunyaporn Trachootham. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/11533

Factsheet

What are Sea Hares? - page 2

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