Re: Flabellina ischitana

Dear Erwin,

Lucas's comment about your identification was not a criticism of your efforts, which are much appreciated by all of us. Your Meditteranean Slug Site and the many messages you have sent to the Forum are greatly valued.

On the available published information, your animal seems to fit Flabellina ischitana and I would probably identify it as such. Basically, from his experience with Flabellina ischitana and Flabellina affinis, Lucas has a 'hunch' that your animal may in fact be another as yet unrecognised species and he would love to look at some specimens to see if there are any different anatomical characters, that we can't see in a photo or from the outside of the living animal.

If we consider how long Flabellina ischitana was considered a form of Flabellina affinis, it wouldn't be a great surprise if there was another similarly looking species still deceiving us.

We still have a lot to learn about nudibranchs. Books are a great help but they are only as good as the author and the information available to the author at the time the book was published. In this case, if there is a third species we don't know about at present, its characters will be mixed with one of the other species and confusing the existing descriptions.

One purpose of the Sea Slug Forum is to give everyone an opportunity to discuss identification problems and keep us all up to date with current thinking. Hopefully your picture, and Lucas's comments, will inspire someone to collect some specimens that match the animal in your photos and either have a look at their anatomy or send them to Lucas who I am sure would love to be able to compare them with 'typical' Flabellina ischitana.

Best wishes,
Bill Rudman