First record of Cuthona puellula from Australia

April 19, 2008
From: Gary Cobb


Concerning message #7493:

Hi Bill and everyone!

I am please to announce, with a positive ID from Richard Willan, two Cuthona puellula found here on the Sunshine Coast off Mooloolaba, sthn Queensland at a dive site called Shellacey Reef. The two animals were found trailing each other.

We used out microscope to get a great look at these beautiful animals. It is like they are sprinkled with sugar dust!! The brilliant orange anterior band is a give away. The two animal we found have very vivid white lines on the ceras and faint orange spots.

Locality: Mooloolaba, Sunshine Coast, 18 m, Queensland, Australia, Pacific Ocean, 21 March 2006. Length: 4 mm. Photographer: Gary Cobb.

As far as we know this find is a new record for Australia, previously only known from Japan. This find make our species list a total of 336.

Cheers,
Gary Cobb

gary@nudibranch.com.au

Cobb, G.C., 2008 (Apr 19) First record of Cuthona puellula from Australia. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/21468

Dear Gary,

This is indeed an interesting find. Even without the faint orange spots visible on a few of the anterior cerata I would have agreed with Richard's identification. I am posting some photos today from Japan [see Ayumi Murakami's message #20894 ] which lack the orange markings on the cerata, so it looks like this could be a normal part of the variation in this species.

I don't know of any other record outside of Japan. That of course doesn't necessarily mean it has just arrived in Australia. The small size and the irregular appearance of tergipedids means that their geographic distribution is poorly known in many parts of the world, and will remain so unless there is much more diligent and systematic collecting.

Best wishes,
Bill Rudman

Rudman, W.B., 2008 (Apr 19). Comment on First record of Cuthona puellula from Australia by Gary Cobb. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/21468

Factsheet

Cuthona puellula

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