Unknown Elysia from Croatia

March 27, 2007
From: Mat Vestjens


Hallo Bill,

Attached I send you three pictures of Elysia. Number 1 and 2 were taken at a depth of 30 metres, number 3 was very shallow approximately 3 metres. Due to the blue pigmentation, I was thinking it could be E. viridis, but these animals stay very small (max. 5 mm) and E. viridis gets much larger than that as I know from Holland. Are these all the same species and can it be E. viridis? If so, why don't they get larger than 5 mm? There is plenty of food.

Locality: Selce, 5 - 30 metres, Croatia, Adriatic, 16 September 2006. Length: < 5 mm. Photographer: Mat Vestjens.

Best regards,
Mat Vestjens

annenmat@natuurlijkmooi.net

Vestjens, M.G., 2007 (Mar 27) Unknown Elysia from Croatia. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/19766

Dear Mat,
I would welcome some comments from local experts. The dark green one looks like E. viridis, but looking at the filamentous algae in the background of that photo, it looks a bit bigger than 5 mm?

The animals in upper two photos have much larger blue spots than for any E. viridis  I can recall, except for one juvenile from Sweden [message #5944] but in that case, the animal's proportions are clearly that of a juvenile. Yours animals all seem to have adult proportions. I haven't done an exhaustive search of the literature but I can't think of a Mediterranean Elysia with such large blue spots.

Best wishes,
Bill Rudman

Rudman, W.B., 2007 (Mar 27). Comment on Unknown Elysia from Croatia by Mat Vestjens. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/19766

Factsheet

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