Lobiger souverbii from Bahia de Banderas
June 6, 2002
From: Ali Hermosillo
Dear Dr. Rudman,
Sandra Millen and Mike Miller were diving with a few weeks ago. Sandra and I were looking for sacoglossans in some species of Codium and Caulerpa with no luck. After they left, I went for another dive at Playa Mismaloya, Bahia de Banderas, Pacific Coast of Mexico. The past few weeks we had a dramatic rise in the water temperature which brought a rapid growth of alga all over.
This Lobiger souverbii was in a species of Caulerpa, 20 feet deep, 9 May 2002. Length: 7mm (there was a smaller one with it).
It only has one lobe, however, I do not know whether I caused it to autotomize the rest or this was done before I saw it.
I have read the identification of this species is confusing because the number of lobes it has. It autotomizes them rather easily. This one has only one, I do not know whether it lost the other when I collected it or was like that before. It is really small but you can see the characteristic blue lines on the shell. I like the lower right picture that shows it coiled under the Caulerpa as it shows just how hard they are to spot.
Ali
gueri25@hotmail.com
Hermosillo, A., 2002 (Jun 6) Lobiger souverbii from Bahia de Banderas. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/7005
Dear Ali,
Thanks for the photos. Looking for cryptic sacoglossans on their food plants can be a soul destroying exercise. I remember the first time I visited the Great Barrier Reef and was looking for sacoglossans living on Caulerpa racemosa. I really wanted to see living bivalved gastropods for the first time. After a week's searching and it seemed many tons of Caulerpa I admitted defeat. To build up the museum's collections we used to wash samples of algae in dilute formalin and preserve to washings for lab investigation. Months later a technician came up to me and said how rich in bivalve sacoglossans our samples were - and the three of us in the field had not seen one of them alive!
Best wishes,
Bill Rudman
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