Ercolania coerulea from Slovenia

April 19, 2005
From: Tom Turk

Dear Bill,

This picture was photographed in 3 m depth in front of Marine biological station in Piran, Slovenia.
In my opinion the specimen is Ercolania coerulea, could you confirm the identification?

Locality: Piran, Marine biological station, Slovenia, northern Adriatic. Depth: 3 m. Length: 1.5 cm. March 26th 2005. rocky infralitoral with patches of sand and gravel. Photographer: Samo Alajbegovic

Tom Turk

 

tom.turk@bf.uni-lj.si

Turk, T., 2005 (Apr 19) Ercolania coerulea from Slovenia. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/13536

Dear Tom.
Yes this is Ercolania coerulea. The blue spots which are painted so prominently in the illustration in Schmekel & Portmann (1982) can be seen as a whitish patch on some of the cerata in your photo and are apparently reflected light which has been affected by the microscopic cilia covering the cerata, rather than spots caused by blue pigmentation. The photo shows the green branching digestive gland in the head, and the white tip and white lines down each side of the inflated cerata.

It's good to get a photo of typical Ercolania coerulea from the Mediterranean on the Forum
Best wishes,
Bill Rudman

Rudman, W.B., 2005 (Apr 19). Comment on Ercolania coerulea from Slovenia by Tom Turk. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/13536

Factsheet

Ercolania coerulea

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