Difference between Spurilla and Berghia

September 27, 1999
From: Carlo Magenta

Dear friends,

I would like to know what's the difference between AEOLIDIIDAE and SPURILLIDAE. I would like to know too between Spurilla and Berghia.

Thanks for all.
Best regards,
Carlo Magenta

magenta@goldtec.com.br

Magenta, C., 1999 (Sep 27) Difference between Spurilla and Berghia. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/1368

Dear Carlo,

Have you had any luck identifying you red aeolid or taken further photos of it?

I can answer your first question easily. Most authors consider the AEOLIDIIDAE and SPURILLIDAE to be the same phylogenetic group, and use the name Aeolidiidae.

Your second question is not as simple. The three genera: Berghia Trinchese, 1877, Baeolidia Bergh, 1888, and Spurilla Bergh, 1864, have been subjected to much debate. They all have a very similar arched radular tooth, and have the anterior cerata arranged in arches in Berghia and Spurilla. In Berghia the rhinophore clubs are papillate and in Spurilla they are lamellate (perfoliate) as illustrated here for Spurilla neapolitana. In a review of some Indo-West Pacific species (Rudman, 1982) I proposed that both genera should be synonymised and the earliest name Spurilla be used. I would be surprised if Spurilla neapolitana, with perfoliate rhinophores, and Spurilla australis, with papillate rhinophores were not congeneric. However the third genus,
Baeolidia, is more of a problem, as the type species Baeolidia moebii has never been rediscovered. It is said to have the cerata arranged in rows, and have papillate rhinophores.

There are reproductive differences between the type species Spurilla neapolitana and Berghia coerulescens, and whereas Spurilla neapolitana can harbour zooxanthellae in its body wall (like many Indo-West Pacific species with papillate rhinophores), Berghia coerulescens does not seem to. Perhaps we have been confused by using the rhinophore club as a character. Perhaps both Berghia and Spurilla are distinct genera and both include species with papillate or perfoliate rhinophores.

Terry Gosliner (1980) also discusses the history of these names in some detail.

If anyone can provide some more photos of Berghia coerulescens I would be grateful.

So what do I suggest? I use Spurilla for both Spurilla neapolitana and the Indo-West pacific species with papillate rhinophores, but I realise this is not accepted universally. Basically some more work is needed on this group.

Sorry I can't be more definitive.
Bill Rudman.

•Rudman, W.B. (1982) The taxonomy and biology of further aeolidacean and arminacean nudibranch molluscs with symbiotic zooxanthellae. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 74: 147-196.
•Gosliner, T. (1979) The systematics of the Aeolidacea (Nudibranchia: Mollusca) of the Hawaiian Islands, with descriptions of two new species. Pacific science, 33(1): 37-77.

Rudman, W.B., 1999 (Sep 27). Comment on Difference between Spurilla and Berghia by Carlo Magenta. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/1368

Factsheet

Spurilla neapolitana

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