Chromodoris orientalis from Sth Korea

Dear Kevin,

I am glad the Forum has been a way to make new friends as well as see new slugs. I think this is the first time I have seen an example of C. orientalis with such a streaky black pattern. We don't know that much about this species, so its a useful bit of new information. When looking at similarly coloured animals like this, I tend to look for some other feature of the colour pattern to link them or separate them. For example, in both your specimens the translucent white gills have an orange-yellow line along the outer edge and a black one along the inner edge. This is a very unusual colour pattern which suggests to me that the two are the same species. If you look at other photos of this species on the Forum you will see that the black lines are sometimes brown, and sometimes absent. It's one of those characters whose presence can give you a positive identfication, but whose absence can't really be used.

I would very much like to get photos of this animal laying eggs. As I mention earlier [message #5172], there are reports that it lays a flat egg-ribbon, but on the Forum we have photos of it with a ribbon apparently attached along one edge. It would be valuable to clarify this. It would also be nice to know what type of sponges it feeds on as well. 

Thanks also for the flatworm photo. There are a lot of flatworms which look remarkably like particular nudibranchs, but as you suggest, we can't always be sure they are real mimics

Best wishes,
Bill Rudman