More Sea Hares in Florida

March 4, 2001
From: Jackie O'Neal

Brown blobby thing washed up on shore at Pompano Beach, Florida, USA. E-mailed Steve Long. Said it may be Aplysia dactylomela. Pulled up on computer and got into your site somehow. Looks like Aplysia vaccaria, close to Aplysia fasciata, and Aplysia californica. Has wings almost. Very curious to know what it is. Never saw anything like it before. I am absolutely amazed after pulling up seaslug.com that there are so many slugs living in the sea. I am curious as to why they washed up on our shore at all. There was quite a lot of seaweed about. This was a couple of days ago around Feb 26th. Today March 1st, there were still a few in the ocean. Not so many washed up on the shore, which cut my trip in half as I didn't have to throw them back in the water. The wind or at least the tide seemed to be coming out of the south east today. There were no markings on the slugs at all. Just very dark brown. Two of them did omit a purplish red substance which I thought was blood and that I had hurt them. According to Steve that is a defense mechanism that they use. Would appreciate any information you can give me.

Yours sincerely,

Jackie O'Neal
Pompano Beach, Florida, USA.

0411@mediaone.net

O'Neal, J., 2001 (Mar 4) More Sea Hares in Florida. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/3902

Dear Jackie,
In the last couple of weeks there seems to have been 'aggregations' of at least two species of Sea Hares. Have a look at the recent messages from Talia and Krystal reporting Aplysia brasiliana from Florida, and Dana with photos of Bursatella leachi.

I am not sure how familiar you are with websites, but if you click on any underlined word you will be taken to another relevant page. If you look at the references mentioned in my comments to the above messages, and look at other messages on the same pages, you should get some background information on why we sometimes find large numbers of Sea Hares like this.

Concerning Purple Ink. There is no evidence to show that it has any defensive function in any species of Sea Hare, but we have no idea what other function it might have. Perhaps it is just an excretory product.

I am pretty sure your animal is Aplysia brasiliana.
Best wishes,
Bill Rudman

Note added March 9, 2001: This is A. morio not A. brasiliana. See message. A. morio is an uniform dark brown or black while A. brasiliana has a mottled colour pattern of dark and light brown.

Rudman, W.B., 2001 (Mar 4). Comment on More Sea Hares in Florida by Jackie O'Neal. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/3902

Factsheet

Aplysia morio

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