Phyllodesmium sp - another Xenia mimic

March 17, 2003
From: Takako Uno & Stephen Wong


Dear Dr. Rudman,
Excuse us for constantly troubling you. My husband, Stephen, and I saw this nudibranch (with the help of a super-eyed-divemaster) on our Dec 2002 trip in Lembeh, N.Sulawesi Indonesia.

It looks like the organ pipe coral (Tubipora or Clavularia or Xenia) in the upper photo. It really was difficult to see it, when we took our eyes off it. The interesting nudi just blended perfectly with these same sized corals. A bigger photo by Stephen shows its oral tentacles.

We have checked with all our literature at home, but can not locate it nor anything close. Can you kindly help us with this species?

Upper: Takako Uno
Lower: Stephen Wong

Best regards,
Takako Uno & Stephen Wong

divetoto@hotmail.com

Uno, T. & Wong, S., 2003 (Mar 17) Phyllodesmium sp - another Xenia mimic. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/9200

Note added 17 February 2007: This species has now been named Phyllodesmium rudmani.

Dear Takako & Stephen,
What a wonderful animal! You have my permission to continue to constantly trouble me with photos like this. Your photos arrived just as I was leaving to take part in a mollusc course at one of our local universities. I hope you don't mind but I just had to include them in one of my talks, as an example of perfect camouflage and possibly Solar Power, and also as an example of all the amazing new information that participants to the Sea Slug Forum are making available to us all.

This is a species of Phyllodesmium and I assume it is unnamed. I am pretty sure the soft-coral it is mimicking is a species of Xenia. It has similarities to Phyllodesmium kabiranum which sometimes has white lines on the upper part of the cerata but we would need to find some intermediates, and compare their anatomy to be sure. At present I will call it Phyllodesmium sp. 11.
Best wishes
Bill Rudman

Rudman, W.B., 2003 (Mar 17). Comment on Phyllodesmium sp - another Xenia mimic by Takako Uno & Stephen Wong. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/9200

Factsheet

Phyllodesmium rudmani

Related messages

  1. Juvenile Phyllodesmium rudmani from Red Sea
    From: Michael Henke, March 3, 2008
  2. Phyllodesmium rudmani from Nth Sulawesi
    From: Michael Pollack, March 20, 2007
  3. New species - Phyllodesmium rudmani
    From: Ingo Burghardt, February 17, 2007
  4. Phyllodesmium sp. 11 from Lembeh strait
    From: Heidi Hösel, December 19, 2005
  5. Re: Phyllodesmium sp - another Xenia mimic
    From: Erwin Koehler, March 28, 2003
  6. Re: Phyllodesmium sp. 11
    From: Nerida Wilson, March 22, 2003

Show factsheet and all related messages