Aplysia willcoxi - a junior synonym of A. brasiliana?

December 22, 2006
From: Anthony Fernando

Hello Dr. Rudman,

I'm working on a list and key of North Carolina opisthobranchs and I'm a little confused about the validity of the species Aplysia willcoxi Heilprin 1886 (or 1887).

Malacolog asserts A. willcoxi Heilprin 1887 as valid.

The NODC taxonomic code index asserts A. brasiliana as a senior synonym.

Marcus and Marcus accepted A. willcoxi as valid, but list it as Heliprin, 1886. They apparently never had a specimen. Eveline Marcus keyed A. brasiliana from A. willcoxi and A. winneba on the basis of only the tip of the caecum being visible on the surface of the digestive gland.

And Dr. McDonald's bibliography only lists two publications by Heilprin, one in 1888 and one in 1889. I have the 1888 reference, and it only lists an Aplysia aequorea, and the description does not match Dover's description for A. willcoxi. (The Marcus's didn't describe it in either paper)

Do you know if A. willcoxi is indeed valid, and where the description for it is?

  • Dover, C. V. and Kirby-Smith, W. W. (1979) Field Guide to Common Marine Invertebrates of Beaufort, N. C. Part 1: Gastropoda, Bivalvia, Amphipoda, Decapoda, & Echinodermata. Beaufort: Duke University Marine Laboratory.
  • Heilprin, A. (1888). Contributions to the natural history of the Bermuda Islands Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 1888: 302-328, pls. 14-16.
  • ITIS Report (1996) Aplysia willcoxi Heilprin, 1886. Retrieved from http://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value= 78030 on 12 December 2006.
  • Marcus, Er. (1961) Opisthobranchia from North Carolina. Journal of the Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society, 77(2): 141-151
  • Marcus, Ev. (1977) On the Anaspidea of the warm waters of the western Atlantic. Bull. Mar. Sci., 22: 841-847
  • Rosenberg, G. 2005. Malacolog 4.0: A database of Western Atlantic marine Mollusca. [WWW database (version 4.1.0)] URL http://data.acnatsci.org/wasp

Thank you,
Tony Fernando

anthonyfernando@yahoo.com

Fernando, A.V., 2006 (Dec 22) Aplysia willcoxi - a junior synonym of A. brasiliana?. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/19011

Dear Tony,
Firstly I find many lists of names on the web to be traps for the uninitiated - especially those that seem to have no author or authors listed as responsible compilers of the list. It is very easy to assemble a list of names, throw it into a database program and churn out a list of names in various forms. The web lists you mention don't fall into that category but many you no doubt have found are like that. Rosenberg's list is a list of 'available' names - it is not necessarily a list of valid species. The distinction is important because some names were not correctly introduced under the International Rules of Zoological Nomenclature. We call these 'unavailable' and they can be ignored. If a name is available we then need to consider whether it is a 'good' or 'valid' species or whether the species it refers to already has a name. I note the ITIS site states A. willcoxi is 'invalid' which is confusing. It may be a synonym but it is certainly an available name. They cite Turgeon et al (1998) as the source of the synonymy, but as I have not seen that publication I don't know if the proposed synonymy is base on research or just based on one of the authors' 'gut feelings'.

I am afraid the sea hares worldwide are in need of considerable revision. The only major revision (Eales, 1960) recognised approx 36 species, and a number have been described since then. Her revision was based on literature reports and preserved specimens and I suspect at least a third of those species are unnecessary, but until species are studied on the basis of large scale populations we are not going to sort them out, considering the variability in colour of most species. The species of the west Atlantic are a good example, and need to be considered at least with the east Atlantic species. For example, I have argued a case on the Forum for considering the common west Atlantic Aplysia brasiliana to be a synonym of the east Atlantic A. fasciata. Aplysia winneba, from the west coast of Africa, is certainly a synonym of A. fasciata. Although Eales treats A. willcoxi as a distinct species, I can see nothing in the various descriptions to distinguish it from A. brasiliana. Aplysia willcoxi and A. brasiliana are both large, variably coloured species, which swim. I suspect the test is to find a resident expert who can convincingly show you the differences between these two species and the dark brown Aplysia morio. To further confuse the issue, some west Atlantic species have a worldwide distribution.

The Heilprin paper you are looking for is not listed in Gary McDonald's bibliography because it lists only nudibranch papers, not other opisthobranchs, so Heilprin's papers which include sea hares and nudibranchs are in the bibliography, but the one you were after did not include nudibranchs. The paper has a printed date of 1886, but sometimes the printed date on a paper is misleading because the paper may not have been actually published, or distributed, until the following year. Gary Rosenberg is fairly diligent with dates so I suspect if he has 1887, then this may be one of those cases.

In brief, my advice would be to treat A. willcoxi as a synonym of A. brasiliana but include a footnote in your key explaining that the jury is still out on the west coast aplysiids.

  • Heilprin, A. (1886)  A new species of Aplysia. Proc acad nat sci Philadelphia, 3: 364
  • Eales, N.B. (1960) Revision of the world species of Aplysia (Gastropoda, Opisthobranchia). Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History). Zoology, 5(10): 1-404 [350-2]
  • Turgeon, D. D., J. F. Quinn, Jr., A. E. Bogan, E. V. Coan, F. G. Hochberg, W. G. Lyons, et al. (1998). Common and scientific names of aquatic invertebrates from the United States and Canada: Mollusks, 2nd ed. American Fisheries Society Special Publication 26. 526.

Best wishes,
Bill Rudman

Rudman, W.B., 2006 (Dec 22). Comment on Aplysia willcoxi - a junior synonym of A. brasiliana? by Anthony Fernando. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/19011

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Aplysia brasiliana

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