Swimming Aplysia fasciata from Spain

November 20, 2002
From: Job Tammens

Dear Bill,
Here some pictures of a swimming Sea Hare from a sandy beach on the Mediterranean coast of Spain. I have seen lots of them in the last three years during my annual visits. Before then I had never seen any, which is very strange, because I'm a regular visitor. They are brown to almost black in color and their size varies from 15 to ca. 35 cm. I haven't seen any of this Mediterranian type on the Forum so I hope these pictures can be of some help.

The photo's were taken at the beach of a small town called Peñiscola, roughly 120 km north of Valencia and 230 km south of Barcelona. It is one of the most important monuments of Spain. The sixty's movie "El Cid" with Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren was shot here. The conditions in the last week of September 2002, when we took these photos was sunny, about 28 °C, water temperature about 18 °C. and hardly any wind.

When we first found them three years ago we didn’t have a clue what they were except for a seaslug. Also the locals had no idea, mostly they were panicking and calling it “Medusa” (jellyfish). A lot of them were already dead and lying on the beach rolled up looking very much like a grilled pigeon. The ones that were still in the water we tried to save by bringing them in deeper water and directing them to open sea. After two or three attempts this mostly worked out well. When we touched them they were spraying red ink.

Kind regards,
Job Tammens
Groningen, The Netherlands

job.tammens@12move.nl

Tammens, J., 2002 (Nov 20) Swimming Aplysia fasciata from Spain. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/8449

Dear Job,
Thanks for the photos and your observations. It is nice to get a series of photos showing the swimming action. This is Aplysia fasciata, a large Sea Hare found on the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts of Europe. If you have a look at some of the earlier messages, which are below yours on this page, you'll see that it is has been seen a number of times in large numbers, sometimes swimming, in Portugal, Greece and southern France. I have discussed there some of the reasons Sea Hares are often found in large numbers, often washing up and dying on beaches.
Best wishes,
Bill Rudman

Rudman, W.B., 2002 (Nov 20). Comment on Swimming Aplysia fasciata from Spain by Job Tammens . [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/8449

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Aplysia fasciata

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