Re: Food of Costasiella formicaria

July 23, 2008
From: Nishina Masayoshi

Concerning message #21723:

Dear Bill and Kathe,

At first I suspected the green algae around Costasiella formicaria is Vaucheria because as Kathe mentioned that some species of Costasiella feed on Vaucheria. But I doubted the depth - 8 m is too deep to inhabit for Vaucheria.

So, I collected the green algae and asked the expert in The Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology for identification. It was identified as the *chlorophyte Pseudochlorodesmis furcellata (Zanardini) Boergesen 1925.

I confirmed that this P. furcellata is the diet of C. formicaria by the under water observation and the observation with the water tank.

Yours sincerely,
Nishina Masayoshi

nishina@wips.co.jp

Nishina Masayoshi, 2008 (Jul 23) Re: Food of Costasiella formicaria. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/21735

[*note above: chromophyte changed to chlorophyte [see #21743 ]]

Dear Nishina,

Thanks very much for checking this out.  I have checked the literature and found that Pseudochlorodesmis belongs to the same family [Udoteaceae] of green algae as Avrainvillea, which makes more sense than the quite unrelated yellow-green alga Vaucheria. It would be interesting if Kathe could comment on the reliability of the indentifications of the food of  C. pallida and C. coronata as Vaucheria.

Best wishes,
Bill Rudman

Rudman, W.B., 2008 (Jul 23). Comment on Re: Food of Costasiella formicaria by Nishina Masayoshi. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/21735

Factsheet

Costasiella formicaria

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