Dendronotus rufus - egg predation 3
April 30, 2007
From: Jan Kocian
Hello Bill.
Following on from my earlier messages [#19289] I thought I should update you on the lives of Dendronotus rufus at the Langley Tire Reef. They are still there in numbers, about two dozen slug busily engaged in egg laying. I check on them weekly, they like to choose a rock and cover it with eggs, then move to another one and start all over again.
Interestingly, since I first discovered them on January 10th, they remain in the same two areas, never venturing more the fifteen feet diameter from the egg covered rocks. On my last visit I found small Pycnopodia star on one of the egg spirals, and watched D. rufus crawl on top of the star which then rapidly departed, leaving eggs intact. Could it be that D. rufus engaged the star in chemical warfare?
Locality: Whidbey Island,Puget Sound, 18 feet, Washington, USA, Eastern Pacific Ocean, 1 March 2007, rocks. Length: 170 mm. Photographer: Jan Kocian.
Cheers,
Jan
honkoc@hotmail.com
Kocian, J., 2007 (Apr 30) Dendronotus rufus - egg predation 3. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/19592
Dear Jan,
Sorry this has taken a while to post. It certainly looks as though one of the Dendronotus gave the starfish a message it decide not to ignore, and a chemical one is probably the most likely. I can't recall any studies on chemical defence in dendronotids but we still have a lot to learn.
Best wishes,
Bill Rudman
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