Re: Siphopteron michaeli from Reunion Island

Dear Hugues,

Thanks for letting me know. The presence of a siphon is not in itself a character of Siphopteron. The main characters of Siphopteron are the prominent 'crest' along the midline of the siphon, a reduced number of lateral teeth in the radula and some penial structures. Most gastropterids have a siphon, which in its basic shape is formed from the enrolling of the median part of the posterior haead shield. You can see this illustrated quite well in many of the photos of Gastropteron chacmol.

The reason I initially called this Gastropteron michaeli on the Forum was because I thought the paper in which Terry Gosliner named this species was after the revision in which he named the new genus Siphopteron, so I didn't check the detail in his revision to see what genus he had placed it in. I have no issue with it being a Siphopteron, I just made a bibliographic mistake.

Best wishes,
Bill Rudman