Re: Chromodoris michaeli? from the Philippines
June 23, 2001
From: Erwin Koehler
Dear Bill,
Here is a Chromodoris michaeli one from the Philippines, Cebu Island, Moalboal, divesite "housereef", depth 10 m, length about 3 cm, May 2000. This photo was taken by Georg Heinze and identified by David W Behrens. I think it looks like the one I recently sent to you.
Erwin
Erwin@medslugs.de
Koehler, E., 2001 (Jun 23) Re: Chromodoris michaeli? from the Philippines. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/4648Dear Erwin,
It certainly looks like the animal you sent earlier which I identified as Chromodoris dianae. The one major difference, as I said then, was the colour of the gills. In your earlier photo the gills were translucent colorless, or whitish, with an orange mark on the outer edge, which is characteristic of one of the colour forms of C. dianae. Georg Heinze's photo however shows an animal in which the gills are a uniform translucent orange, which is characteristic of C. michaeli. However in Gosliner & Behren's original description of this species they say that the orange band around the mantle edge is 'uninterrupted'. In this animal the band around the anterior end is 'uninterrupted' but that is certainly not the case around the rest of the mantle edge.
These groups of similarly coloured species of chromodorids are often difficult to separate from one another. If we are correct in thinking that these colour groups are the result of mimicry then it is not surprising that different species look so alike.
Best wishes,
Bill Rudman
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