Ceratosoma tenue from Lembeh - feeding?

April 2, 2008
From: Kamal El Tawil

Dear Bill,

After reading your message [#20930], I went through my pictures and found some I have recently taken of Ceratosoma tenue. The animals were slowly moving on black sandy bottom and rubble. They don't seem to be feeding and I couldn't spot any sponges. Maybe you will spot a food source in the attached pictures as you did in Mike Krampf's picture (message #20164 )?

Locality: Lembeh Straight, N.E. Sulawesi, 10 metres, Indonesia, Celebes sea, 12 August 2007, Sandy bottom. Length: 100 mms. Photographer: Kamal El Tawil.

Kind regards,
Kamal El Tawil
www.coralworld.net

kamal@coralworld.net

El Tawil, K., 2008 (Apr 2) Ceratosoma tenue from Lembeh - feeding?. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/20945

Dear Kamal,

I am pretty sure the 'lumpy' stuff the two Ceratosoma are sitting on is the remains of a sponge colony. It does no necessarily mean that the whole mass was sponge but it looks like there was a layer of sponge which had grown over the underlying material. from, the ittle we know about feeding in this genus, species of Ceratosoma appear to feed on sponges of the family Dysideidae. The colonies have small cone-like tubercles all over them and radiating from each cone is a radiating pattern of fibres. If you look at your photos you can see traces of such a radiating pattern, and in the middle right close-up photo there is a pinkish patch which lloks very like [see #19391].

Although I am pretty certain that these animals are on a destroyed - probably eaten by them - sponge colony, I can't identify the sponge with any certainty, but my guess is a dysideid.

Best wishes,
Bill Rudman

Rudman, W.B., 2008 (Apr 2). Comment on Ceratosoma tenue from Lembeh - feeding? by Kamal El Tawil. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/20945

Factsheet

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