Re: Elysia ornata from St. Vincent
October 25, 2005
From: Roberto Sozzani
Dear Bill,
Concerning your comments in message #15076: About the color of spots on parapodia of Indo-Pacific species, I've these photos in which we can see also orange spots. Both photos are taken in Nusantara Dua (Secret Bay), in the North-West tip of Bali: the first one on March, when the sandy-muddy bottom is almost clean. The second one in June, when the bottom is completely covered by a green algae, with large and thin leaves, very similar to a plastic film. As you can see, this algae has many orange spots too [see inset in middle right photo ]. Is it possible that this species has developed orange spots for a better mimetism?
Locality: Nusantara II - Bali, Indonesia. Depth: 5 meters. Length: 10 cm. March - June 2003. muddy. Photographer: Roberto Sozzani
Best wishes
Roberto Sozzani
www.robertosozzani.it
roberto.sozzani@fastwebnet.it
Sozzani, R., 2005 (Oct 25) Re: Elysia ornata from St. Vincent. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/15095
Dear Roberto,
I should have learnt by now not to make definitive statements. You are of course right - although I said Indo-West Pacific animals only have black and white spots, they can, as you illustrate, have orange spots, both on the inside [middle left photo] and outside [lower right photo] of the parapodia. They can also lack the submarginal orange band, or series of markings, at the parapodial edge. I thought at one stage that Caribbean animals were distinguished by having black-tipped rhinophores, but there are a numnber of examples on the Forum of Indo-West Pacific animals with black-tipped rhinophores.
Concerning the possibility that the orange spots mimic the orange specks on the algae. Anything's possible I suppose, but the orange spots on the algae look like like sandgrains. If so, the mimicry would only in places with a similar geology. I guess we would have to survey they species over a large geographic area and see if there is any correlation between orange spots on the animal and orange specks on the algae.
Best wishes,
Bill Rudman
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