Sea Hare classification - A. californica

December 31, 2000
From: Rachel Frank

Hi.
My name is Rachel Frank, and I am a student at Millikan High School in Long Beach California, and I am doing a report on Sea Hares. I need to know the classification (Kingdom, Phylum, Family, Genus, species) of the Aplysia californica, and I was wondering if you could help me. I was also wondering if you could tell me if I would be more likely to see Aplysia californica or Aplysia vaccaria in Catalina, California (we are going in January as part of this project)

Thanks for your Help
Rachel Frank

RachyFrank@aol.com

Frank, R., 2000 (Dec 31) Sea Hare classification - A. californica. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/3420

Dear Rachel,
Have you had a look at the pages on the Forum about sea hares? If you go to the Sea Hares Page you will a list of other useful pages. If you click on any underlined word it will take you to a page about that subject.

On your question about its classification. Aplysia califoornica belongs to the Animal Kingdom. It is a peculiar sort of snail which is losing its shell, and ii related to other snails and clams and octopus. It therefore belongs to the Phylum Mollusca. It is a Sea Hare, which is a special group of sea slugs belonging to the Order Anaspidea, and it is in the Family Aplysiidae. The name, Aplysia californica, answers the last part of the question about what Genus and species it belongs to.

An animal's scientific name, in this case Aplysia californica, is its species name and it always consists of two words. The first word, with a capital letter at the front is also the Genus name. So the genus is Aplysia. If anyone tells you that the species name is just californica they are wrong, it is Aplysia californica.

Now to your more interesting question about which species you are likely to find. I am afraid that living in Sydney, Australia, I don't have much knowledge of your Californian sea hares. However I am sure someone in California will read your message and either send some information to the Forum or write to you directly. So keep looking at the Forum for a few days to see what messages other people send in about Californian sea hares.

Good Luck with your trip to Catalina,
Bill Rudman.

Rudman, W.B., 2000 (Dec 31). Comment on Sea Hare classification - A. californica by Rachel Frank. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/3420

Factsheet

Aplysia californica

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