Mating Chelidonura hirundinina from Hawaii
December 23, 2004
From: Lyudmila Zinkova
Dear Dr Rudman,
Thank you for your response on my sea hare question. I'd like to ask you another picture question, please. I saw dozens of mating sea slugs. I know they are hermaphrodite, which in my opinion means that the same kind should have the same color, yet the ones that were mating in Hawaii sometimes had a little bit different coloration. Here's one of the pictures. If you are interested I could send you much more of these.
Thank you.
Mila.
MBZ1@pge.com
Zinkova, L. , 2004 (Dec 23) Mating Chelidonura hirundinina from Hawaii. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/12640Dear Mila,
Thanks for this photo of mating Chelidonura hirundinina. Hermaphrodite just means that they have a functioning set of both male and female reproductive organs. It doesn't mean they can't have the normal variability you expect to find in a species. Many species have some variation in their colour pattern, such as number of spots, size of spots etc. In Chelidonura hirundinina, as you'll see from other photos on the Forum, is quite variable in colour, especially in the shades of blue and yellow. You would only expect there to be no variation if two animals were identical twins (where a fertilised egg splits in two) or in clones, where off-spring are produced by budding off a bit of the parent's body (which certainly happens in some cnidarians, but not to my knowledge in molluscs).
Now that the Forum is active again, I would welcome more photos from Hawaii
Best wishes
Bill Rudman
Related messages
-
Chelidonura hirundinina from U.S.Virgin Islands
From: Carly Kauffman, September 6, 2007 -
Navanax inermis or Chelidonura hirundina ?
From: Takao Urasawa, May 28, 2007 -
Unknown Chelidonura from New Zealand
From: Ian Skipworth, May 24, 2007 -
Chelidonura hirundinina from the Kermadecs
From: Ian Skipworth, May 26, 2006 -
Chelidonura hirundinina from the Caribbean
From: Les Wilk, October 18, 2005 -
Chelidonura hirundinina mating
From: Anne DuPont, August 26, 2005 -
Chelidonura hirundinina from Malaysia
From: Asther M. Lau, September 17, 2003 -
Chelidonura hirundinina from Caribbean
From: Carol Thomas, August 13, 2003 -
Chelidonura hirundinina from the Bahamas
From: Anne DuPont, April 9, 2003 -
Chelidonura hirundinina from Lord Howe Island
From: W.B. Rudman, January 6, 2003 -
Chelidonura hirundinina from Bali
From: Stuart Hutchison, March 11, 2002 -
Chelidonura chelidonura from Fiji
From: Julian Sprung , February 9, 2002 -
Chelidonura hirundinina in the Caribbean
From: Anne DuPont, October 18, 2001 -
Chelidonura hirundinina in the Solomons
From: Bruce Potter, September 24, 2001 -
Swallowtail sea slug?
From: Robin Adler, September 24, 2001 -
Re: Chelidonura in Atlantic
From: Joe, September 21, 2001 -
Chelidonura in Atlantic
From: Ray, May 28, 2001 -
Chelidonura hirundinina from Solomon Ids
From: Mary Jane Adams, February 7, 2001