Chelidonura sp. 7

Order: CEPHALASPIDEA
Superfamily: PHILINOIDEA
Family: Aglajidae

PHOTO

Eilat, Lighthouse Beach. Depth: 9 m. Israel, Red Sea (Gulf of Eilat). Length: 18 mm. 08 April 2005. sand and occasional corals. Photographer: Binyamin and Shulamit Koretz.

This differs from C. sandrana in shape, and from C. punctata which has very long 'tails'.

There are many problematical yellow-spotted species of Chelidonura which still need to be sorted out. One I have not mentioned before is Chelidonura castanea Yonow 1994, which was described from the Maldives as brownish with yellow spots and with white edging to the parapodia and the head shield. It is possiblya synonym of C. punctata, but Yonow specifically says the background is not black..

Chelidonura tsurugensis has 2 white marks on the head but it differs in having no yellow spots ventrally. Other possiblilties are Chelidonura sp. 2, but as I discuss under Chelidonura sp. 6 we still need to know a lot more about colour variation within individual species.

Authorship details
Rudman, W.B., 2005 (April 18) Chelidonura sp. 7 [In] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/factsheet/chelsp7

Related messages

  1. Re: Chelidonura from the Red Sea
    From: Sylvain Le Bris, August 14, 2008
  2. Chelidonura cf punctata from Red Sea
    From: Oren Lederman, May 18, 2005
  3. Chelidonura from the Red Sea
    From: Binyamin Koretz, April 19, 2005

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