Cnidosacs in Triopha catalinae

Dear Ryan,
I have seen photos of Triopha catalinae and indeed it would be a beautiful animal to work with. If you have any photos, it would be nice to have one for the Forum.

Concerning cnidosacs. Have a look at the page on cnidosacs and the page on aeolid cerata. I am afraid cnidosacs are found only in some aeolid families and the 'papillae' on the back of Triopha, although they look quite similar to those of aeolids are unrelated and quite different in structure and function.

Have a look at the Species List (see button in blue bar at top and bottom of each page) and look at some of the species in the family Polyceridae, and in particular the subfamily Triophinae, for some information on related nudibranchs. They are all bryozoan feeders so one possible aspect of their biology to look at would be to see how many species of bryozoans they feed on - perhaps only one? I don't know what your time frame is, but if you have a year perhaps you could have a look at the life cycle, when they breed, what their egg ribbons look like, do they have planktotrophic larvae, how much colour variation is there?

Very few nudibranchs are so well known that all these obvious questions have been asked and answered. If you have plenty of animals there are lots of basic questions to ask. Do they stay on one bryozoan colony until they eat it out, how long does it take them to kill a colony etc, etc.

I am not familiar with any study on the biology and natural history of this species, or any of its relatives, so any information you discover would be of great interest. If anyone knows of any such study could they let us know please? If you do decide to look into Triopha, please keep us informed of your discoveries, and any photos of it or other opisthobranchs from Pedder bay would be of great interest.
best wishes,
Bill Rudman.