Pink Chromodoris grahami from Colombia
September 22, 2001
From: Elianny Dominguez
Dear Bill,
I'm sending you the photos of the pink form of Chromodoris grahami. We found both animals in May but I went back to the same place on June and I saw two more of them (white and pink) right on the same spot. There are some sewage waters from the houses constructed there, and it seems to us that all the animals of Chromodoris and Pleurobranchus that we have found since March of 2001, were always near the sewage waters.
I read on the Forum that you don't think Aplysians care so much for sewage waters; do you think the same way about the animals on this place.
Kind regards,
Elianny Dominguez.
elicelotte@latinmail.com
Dominguez, E. , 2001 (Sep 22) Pink Chromodoris grahami from Colombia. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/5307
Thanks Elianny,
I don't remember saying Aplysiids don't like sewage - perhaps it was the discussion suggesting that large populations of Bursatella leachi indicated sewerage pollution. I don't really want ot get into a discussion on the subject because it is very complicated. Sewerage itself can cause problems of eutrophication, excess of nutrients leading to excess plant and bacterial growth and deoxygenation. But often with house waste it is the other chemical wastes - detergents, poisons etc which are the problem.
I must say that the leaking main sewer pipe in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, which ran across an intertidal raised reef when I lived there, was a very good place to find nudibranchs, presumably because the added nutrients allowed a lush growth of sponges, hydroids and other colonial animals that nudibranchs like to eat, but I wouldn't consider that a good reason not to fight pollution wherever possible.
Cheers,
Bill Rudman
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