Re: Onchidiid from Thailand

April 28, 2003
From: Kevin J. Caley

We have been calling this animal Onchidium verrucosa, which is uncommon to common in Hong Kong. However, not much work has been done here on this group, so we ARE fumbling in the dark a bit!
Kevin J. Caley

kevin@ecology.hku.hk

Dear Kevin,
The lack of a shell and the often poor descriptions of living animals, means the onchidiids are in a taxonomic mess. Fortunately, internal anatomy seems to be quite distinctive so it should be possible to sort them out although it may mean consigning many older names to an 'unidentifiable' list. There are similar problems with another 'slug' group -the lamellariid section of the velutinids, but in that case many species were described from the reduced internal shell alone so now it is a question of matching shells with living bodies.

Returning to Onchidium. Onchidium verruculatum is a large Indian Ocean species with secondary gills on its back. I agree that the literature is sparse but Cuvier's original description makes it pretty certain that this large species with seondary gills on the mantle is quite identifiable. Unfortunately later authors have incorrectly identified other species from both the Pacific and the Indian Ocean as O. verruculatum and O. verrucosa [See photo below]. I am not sure that this species is the same - it is certainly large enough, but I can see no sign of the secondary gills.
Best wishes,
Bill Rudman

Rudman, W.B., 2003 (Apr 28). Comment on Re: Onchidiid from Thailand by Kevin J. Caley. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/9790

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