Re: Mating Oxynoe antillarum

February 18, 2010
From: Kathe R. Jensen

Concerning message #23140:

Dear Michael and Bill,

The egg capsules on Michael's photos look more like those of Oxynoe azuropunctata. The capsules seem to be large relative to the eggs/embryos, which indicates lecithotrophic development. Do you have any idea about the size of the individual egg capsules? In O. azuropunctata they could be almost half a millimeter in diameter. With lecithotrophic development the animals could have been just egg masses on the algae when they were collected.

I don't know about life span of any Oxynoe (or most other sacoglossans). I usually collected only the number of specimens I needed for my experiments, and after that they did not die of old age.

Larval development in O. azuropunctata takes about 4 weeks, and the larvae are able to crawl about on the algae right away though they do have a small velum for swimming. This is lost a few days after hatching. It would be fun to know if you suddenly have Oxynoe babies in your aquarium.

Best wishes,
Kathe

krjensen@snm.ku.dk

Jensen, K.R., 2010 (Feb 18) Re: Mating Oxynoe antillarum. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/23250

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