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

Rudman, W.B., 2005 (Oct 25). Comment on Re: Elysia ornata from St. Vincent by Roberto Sozzani. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/15095

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Elysia ornata

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