Chromodoris daphne laying eggs
March 27, 2006
From: Leanne & David Atkinson
Dear Bill,
We were thrilled to find this Chromodoris daphne laying eggs on our last dive. Sadly we were still learning to use our newly housed digital camera and badly overexposed the shots showing the eggs coming out. It was definitely laying these eggs and not just crawling over them.
Locality: Fly Point Marine Reserve Port Stephens, 5 metres, New South Wales, Australia, Pacific Ocean, 18.03.2006, Sandy bottom seaweed with scattered sponges and kelp. Length: 25 mm. Photographer: Leanne & David Atkinson.
Regards,
Leanne & David Atkinson
atk@hunterlink.net.au
Atkinson, L.& D., 2006 (Mar 27) Chromodoris daphne laying eggs. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/16171Dear Leanne & David,
I'm thrilled you found this as well! As far as I can recall, we have no information on the egg ribbon and developement of this species up until now. I believe you when you say you saw this animal laying the egg ribbon and anyway I can see a string of eggs leading from the ribbon to the animal suggesting it was disturbed by your interest and stopped laying before it was finshed. The eggs are relatively large so I suspect C. daphne either has lecithotrophic larvae [larvae hatch out as swimming veligers but only stay in the plankton for a short period and don't feed] or has direct development [larvae hatch out of eggs as small crawling slugs]. This is interesting because it fits in with the relatively small geographic range of this species in eastern Australia [southern Queensland and New South Wales].
Best wishes,
Bill Rudman
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