Burrowing Sea Hares

April 22, 2001
From: Bill Rudman

In a recent message, Melanie reported finding apparently burrowing Aplysia brasiliana and I suggested that the most likely explanation was that they had been partly buried by sand movement in rough weather, as burrowing was not a known behaviour in Sea Hares. Subsequent to that Don Barclay sent us his interesting observations on burrowing in Dolabella.

I have just discovered a couple of papers by Aspey & Blankenship on Aplysia brasiliana which describe burrowing behaviour in aquaria. In their studies only small animals (less than 250g) would burrow, and they would stay buried for as short a period as 1 hour or for as long as several weeks. They would only burrow as deep as their rhinophores, because at all times the rhinophore tips and mantle cavity siphons were visible or flush with surface. The studies were done in Texas and although the authors report seing burrowing Sea Hares in the field, their only observations were on aquarium animals.

Which only goes to show we still have a bit to learn about these animals. Anyone else with burrowing observations?

References:
• Aspey, W.P. & Blankenship, J.E. (1976) Aplysia Behavioural Biology: 1. A Multivariate Analysis of Burrowing in A. brasiliana. Behavioural Biology, 17: 279-299.
• Aspey, W.P. & Blankenship, J.E. (1976) Aplysia Behavioural Biology: 2. Induced Burrowing in Swimming A. brasiliana by Burrowed Conspecifics Behavioural Biology, 17: 301-312.

Best wishes,
Bill Rudman

Rudman, W.B., 2001 (Apr 22) Burrowing Sea Hares. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/4210

Factsheet

Aplysia brasiliana

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