Dolabella auricularia and egg masses

January 14, 2003
From: Rachel Przeslawski

Hi Bill,
I'm pretty sure this aplysiid is Dolabella auricularia, but I thought I'd doublecheck to make sure!

Quite a few of the adults and egg masses were found in an estuarine seagrass bed. The adults were large with 2 prominent siphons and a flattened posterior end. The eggs were in a large brown tangled mass similar to other aplysiids except these masses were much larger than any I'd ever seen. In addition, the egg masses easily untangled from the surrounding seaweed and from each other so that an extremely long thin ribbon could be "unwoven". The biggest difference I found between these egg masses and those of other SE Australian aplysiids was that there were only 1-5 embryos per capsule. Indeed, some egg masses had only 1-2 embryos per capsule.
Rachel Przeslawski

rachelp@uow.edu.au

Przeslawski, R., 2003 (Jan 14) Dolabella auricularia and egg masses. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/8874

Thanks Rachel,
From your email address, can I assume your animals were from Wollongong, [New South Wales, Australia]? If you have a higher resolution scan of the whole egg mass it would be nice addition to the Forum. Your animal is indeed Dolabella auricularia. Concerning the number of eggs per capsule, this seems to differ quite markedly in different species. Thompson (1976) reports that in British species, Aplysia depilans averages 25eggs per capsule, Aplysia fasciata approximately 43 eggs, and Aplysia punctata as few as 4.
Best wishes,
Bill Rudman

Rudman, W.B., 2003 (Jan 14). Comment on Dolabella auricularia and egg masses by Rachel Przeslawski. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/8874

Factsheet

Dolabella auricularia

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