Juvenile Armina californica feeding

June 14, 2005
From: Paul Sim


Hello Bill,
Thought you might like these ones of baby striped nudibranchs [Armina californica ] up on the sea pens, munching away. We saw many of them this evening. There was a wicked current present. Perhaps they crawled up when the sea pens were blown over? I don't know, maybe they all decided to rush the sea pens in a Blitzkrieg attack. Who knows the strategy of our slugged friends? :)

Locality:  Cliff Cove, West Vancouver, BC, Canada. Pacific coast. Depth: 70 feet. Length: 1 inch. May 2, 2005. Sandy ledged wall. Photographer: Paul Sim

Paul Sim

plsim@shaw.ca

Sim, P., 2005 (Jun 14) Juvenile Armina californica feeding. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/14043

Dear Paul,
Thanks for these great photos. You are right - we still have much to learn. It is interesting how we often find a cluster of juveniles together. In some species with non-planktonic larvae it occurs because they have all just hatched from an egg mass and have not yet dispersed. In species with planktonic larvae it could mean that a 'swarm' of larvae have all settled together, or that chemical signals from the food have attracted larvae to settle at the same spot.

To change the subject completely - I have included a close-up of one of your photos to show the individual polyps of the sea pen colony. Sea Pens [Order: Pennatulacea] belong to a group of coelenterates [= cnidarians] which we call the Octocorallia. The octo - as in octopus - refers to the eight feeding tentacles each polyp has, which can be clearly seen in your photo. Sea anemones and hard corals, belong to the Hexacorallia, which have six tentacles.
Best wishes,
Bill Rudman

Rudman, W.B., 2005 (Jun 14). Comment on Juvenile Armina californica feeding by Paul Sim. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/14043

Factsheet

Armina californica

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