Re: Spurilla neapolitana from Gulf of Mexico [6]

September 9, 2005
From: Brian Plankis


Bill,
I'm more than happy to share the feeding observations. Here is what I have observed so far. The adults are kept in a bucket with no water movement; I aerate it manually once a day.

1. The adults tend to stay stationary much of the time. They occasionally move around at night, but usually they are just sitting in one location. This changes when anemones are added to the bucket, typically within 10-15 minutes of the anemones being added they will begin to hunt for them in a rather deliberate pattern.

2. The anemone in my most recent picture had just been added to the bucket and did not have time to firmly attach to the side before the meal began. But typically the adults will seek out the anemone and once found the adults will seek out the foot of the anemone and begin tugging on the foot until a portion of it detaches from the surface. I've attached two more pictures to show this.

3. They do not appear to take bites; once feeding has started the adults have never disengaged from the anemones. They will slowly eat at the foot and side of the anemone until they reach the oral disc and typically eat that last. It takes them about 2-4 hours to eat one depending on the size of the anemone.

4. The smaller of my adults can eat anemones about twice its size in one meal, it is very swollen after one of those meals. Both animals are displaying a prominent hump on the back after a large meal.

I do agree with your other message (#14667) that this looks a lot more like Spurilla neapolitana than Aeolidiella stephanieae. I have had 18 egg masses so far and only one was basically linear, the remainder were variously shaped spirals. My adults look identical to the nudibranch in Ami Schlesinger's photo [#11742 ]. The egg mass in her photos are larger than mine, but same zig zag pattern and apparent size of the eggs.

I will be trying to feed Aiptasia species of anemones soon and will see if the feeding pattern is any different.

Brian

garagebrian@yahoo.com

Plankis, B., 2005 (Sep 9) Re: Spurilla neapolitana from Gulf of Mexico [6]. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/14671

Dear Brian,
Thanks for the observations. Hopefully it will inspire others to look  in depth at a single species.
Best wishes,
Bill Rudman

Rudman, W.B., 2005 (Sep 9). Comment on Re: Spurilla neapolitana from Gulf of Mexico [6] by Brian Plankis. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/14671

Factsheet

Spurilla neapolitana

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