Flabellina verta feeding
November 24, 2007
From: Anne DuPont
Hello Bill,
I photographed this Flabellina verta feeding this week in West Palm Beach, FL. We have F verta, F dushia and F dana in our area and it is difficult to tell them apart.
Locality: West Palm Beach, 20 feet, Florida, USA, Atlantic, 14 November 2007, Intertidal, strong tidal flow. Length: 1 cm. Photographer: Anne DuPont.
I sent the photos to Sandra Millen (Dept. Zoology, U.B.C.) to confirm its identification. She confirmed it is F. verta and said:
"I can see that F. verta is eating an orange Eudendrium sp. which is very similar to the one eaten by F. vansyoci on the Pacific coast of Mexico."
Sandra's 2006 paper:
"A New Nudibranch Species, Genus Flabellina (Opisthobranchia: Aeolidacea) from the Caribbean with Redescriptions of F. verta (Marcus 1970), and F. dushia (Marcus and Marcus, 1963)"
can be found at her website: http://www.zoology.ubc.ca/person/millen
Thank you for the wonderful forum and all your time.
Cordially,
Anne DuPont
Delray Beach, FL
akdupont@bellsouth.net
DuPont, A., 2007 (Nov 24) Flabellina verta feeding. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/21156
Dear Anne,
Thanks very much for these nice photos. It gives me the impetus to rename your Flabellina sp. 2 which Sandra Millen & Jeff Hamann have identified with F. verta. I am not an expert on hydroids, but if you have these three species occurring quite commonly it might be nice to see if they are all on the same species of hydroid or whether they all have their own different species. Some aeolids seem to be very restricted in their food choice while others are much less choosey.
If by chance you have photos of F. dana it would be nice to include that on the Forum as well
Best wishes,
Bill Rudman
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