General topics
Everything you ever wanted to know about sea slugs including behaviour, anatomy, aquarium FAQs and associated marine animals and plants. New and interesting topics are added regularly, often in response to an inquiry.
- About the Forum
- Aquarium FAQs (including pests and hitchhikers on live rock)
- Body shape, anatomy and body parts
- Feeding, predation, parasites, commensalism and symbiosis
- General biology, ecology and evolution
- Interstitial (and other microscopic) opisthobranch groups
- Life history, reproduction, mating and eggs
- Localities and geographic regions
- Marine plants, algae, sea weeds and bacteria
- Other animals (including slug food and animals that look like slugs)
- Other molluscs (including snails, clams and chitons)
- References and further reading
- Sacoglossans
- Sea Hares (including Aplysiomorpha, Anaspidea and Aplysia)
- Techniques and background information
- Unidentified species
About the Forum
Aquarium FAQs (including pests and hitchhikers on live rock)
Body shape, anatomy and body parts
- Abnormalities in Body Shape
- Aeolid cnidosac
- Cerata (ceras) in aeolids
- Defensive glands
- Digestive system of a dorid nudibranch
- Radular teeth - differences in two related species
- Regeneration
- Rhinophore in nudibranchs
- The nudibranch head
- Yellow gland - Aglajidae
Feeding, predation, parasites, commensalism and symbiosis
- Bacteria in nudibranchs
- Comparison of Ismalia species
- Coral feeding - Relevant pages
- Coral feeding - defensive adaptations
- Coral feeding - radular adaptations
- Coral feeding - utilising different parts of the coral tissue
- Feeding
- Feeding on Palythoa
- Nudibranchs feeding on Dendronephthya
- Opisthobranch parasites - the copepod Ismaila
- Opisthobranch parasites
- Sea slug predators - Pycnogonids (Sea Spiders)
- Solar-powered sea slugs
- Symbiosis, commensalism, mutualism and parasitism
- What eats sea slugs?
- Zooxanthellae in Cnidarians
- Zooxanthellae in nudibranchs
General biology, ecology and evolution
- Aposematic colouration
- Autotomy
- Biogeography
- Bioluminescence in nudibranchs
- Brain, behaviour and learning
- Camouflage
- Chemical ecology
- Colour in sea slugs
- Colour variation within a species
- Competition
- Detorsion - how snails became sea slugs
- Fossil record
- How many species are there?
- How sea slugs crawl
- Hydrothermal Vents
- Intertidal physiology
- Jan Kocian's Cartoons
- Lessepsian migration
- Longest, shortest, heaviest and smallest
- Mantle flapping in Chromodoris
- Mimicry
- Mimicry - red-spotted chromodorids
- Opisthobranch defence
- Opisthobranch defence mechanisms
- Phylogeny of the Opisthobranchia
- Physiology
- Pteropods
- Sea slug questions
- Swimming in opisthobranchs
- Torsion and detorsion
- Trailing behaviour
- Unidentified species
- What is a slug?
Interstitial (and other microscopic) opisthobranch groups
Life history, reproduction, mating and eggs
- Adult dispersal
- Cross-species matings
- Egg colour variation
- Egg predation
- Egg ribbons - flattened form in chromodorids
- Eggs - differences between species
- Eggs - extra-capsular yolk
- Larval culture
- Larval development
- Larval shell
- Life span
- Mating behaviour
- Nudibranch egg masses - the direction they spiral
- Population fluctuations
- Reproductive system
- Unidentified egg masses
Localities and geographic regions
- Antarctic nudibranchs
- Atlantic Islands
- Australia - Dive sites for opisthobranchs
- British Isles
- Caribbean
- Christmas Island opisthobranchs
- France - collecting notes
- Great Barrier Reef - how many sea-slugs?
- Indonesia
- Indonesia - Operation Wallacea
- Japan - collecting sites and regulations
- Key to Flabellina in the North Atlantic
- Lord Howe Island
- Mexico - Bahia de Banderas
- Mexico - Pacific Coast
- Netherland opisthobranchs
- New Zealand opisthobranchs
- North America - east coast
- North America - west coast
- Operation Wallacea - species list
- Opisthobranchs of Hong Kong
- Reunion Island Sea Slugs
- South Africa
- Tonga
Marine plants, algae, sea weeds and bacteria
- Avrainvillea spp
- Bryopsis - who eats this algae?
- Caulerpa taxifolia in Australia
- Caulerpa taxifolia in the Mediterranean
- Chaetomorpha spp.
- Dictyosphaeria spp.
- Halimeda spp.
- Penicillus spp
- Algae
- What are Zooxanthellae?
Other animals (including slug food and animals that look like slugs)
- Physalia (Portugese man-o-war or Bluebottle)
- Ascidians (Sea squirts, Tunicates)
- Benthic ctenophores
- Bootlace and ribbon worms - Nemertea
- Bryozoa (Ectoprocta, Lace corals)
- Corals (Skeleton-forming hard corals)
- Flatworms
- Hydroids
- Kamptozoa (Entoprocta)
- Miscellaneous cnidarians [sea anemones, corals, etc]
- Peanut Worms, Sipunculid Worms
- Polychaete Worms (Bristle worms)
- Sea Pens
- Sea anemone
- Sea cucumbers
- Soft Corals - chemical defence
- The weed anemone Aiptasia
- Wandering Sea Anemone, (Phlyctenactis tuberculosa )
Other molluscs (including snails, clams and chitons)
- Titiscania limacina Bergh, 1875
- Bivalves, Clams etc
- Chitons, Amphineura and Polyplacophora
- Cowries or cypraeids
- Elephant Slug, Shield Slug, Ducksbill Limpet (Scutus sp.)
- Key Hole Limpets
- Land Slugs - Introduction
- Land Slugs - eggs and development
- Land Slugs - the Semi-slugs
- Marine Pulmonate slugs
- Naticidae - naticids, moon snails
- Olividae
- Ovulids (False Cowries)
- Triviidae
- Velutinidae - are they sea slugs?
- Violet Snails - Janthina spp.
References and further reading
- Aeolidia papillosa
- Dolabella auricularia
- Elysia australis
- Hexabranchus sanguineus
- Lobiger
- Melibe leonina
- Stylocheilus citrina (= S. longicauda) - Nomenclatural references
- Stylocheilus striatus
- Vayssierea felis
- Vayssierea felis - radular morphology
- Acid glands & secretions
- Bookshops
- Chemical defence - Phyllidiidae
- Chloroplast symbiosis
- Cnidosac and nematocyst
- Zooxanthellae symbiosis
Sacoglossans
- Sacoglossa - general anatomy, natural history
- Sacoglossan feeding
- Sacoglossan nomenclatural problems
Sea Hares (including Aplysiomorpha, Anaspidea and Aplysia)
- Akeroidea
- Anaspidea
- Anaspidea - gizzard
- Aplysioidea
- Aplysioidea - head
- Aplysioidea - mantle cavity
- Aplysioidea - swimming
- Chemical defence in Sea Hares - references
- Collecting sites in Australasia
- Feeding in Sea Hares - references
- Ink glands
- Larval development and metamorphosis - Aplysia oculifera
- Mass mortality
- Mating chains
- Sea Hare behaviour - references
- Species list
- The shell in Sea Hares
- What are Sea Hares?
- What are Sea Hares? - page 2
Techniques and background information
- Australasian Nudibranch News
- Biographies and obituaries
- Collecting tools and techniques
- Common names - should we use them?
- Conferences and meetings
- Dissecting, preservation and fixation techniques
- Ecological studies - procedures and methodologies
- Historical collections
- International Code of Zoological Nomenclature
- International Opisthobranch Workshop
- Models of sea slugs
- Names and nomenclatural problems
- New scientific publications
- Photographic Techniques
- Preserving sea slugs
- Pronunciation of scientific names
- Research Requests
- Sea slug recipes
- Steve Long's Opisthobranch Newsletter
- The spelling of Haminoea
Unidentified species
- Aquarium finds - unlocalised, unidentified
- Unidentified - Antarctica
- Unidentified - Australia and New Zealand
- Unidentified - Caribbean and South America (Atlantic)
- Unidentified - East Pacific (Central and South America)
- Unidentified - Europe, Mediterranean, West Africa
- Unidentified - Indo West Pacific
- Unidentified - North America (East Coast)
- Unidentified - North America (West Coast)
- Unidentified - North West Pacific (Japan, China)
- Unidentified - South Africa