Flabellina fusca - behaviour

Renamed Flabellina trophina - see 18 April 2003 message.

Dear Jackie & Glen,
Thanks for the photos and the interesting observations. Perhaps Irina Roginskaya, who has studied this species in Russia, can give us her views. Waters, (1966) reports it feeding on a variety of hydroids [Obelia, Syncoryne, Bougainvillia], which is what you expect an aeolid to eat, but Roginskaya reports it being much more adventurous, feeding on other aeolids [1964 - Flabellina rufibranchialis, Cuthona sp, Hermissenda crassicornis] and the amphipod crustacea and polychaete worms [1990 - Caprella, ?Spiochaetopterus]. So it is possible that it is eating some tube worm. If you have a look at Marli's photo of egg ribbon you should be able to see if the eggs you have found on the worm tubes are the aeolid's. In your photo of it crawling on the shell sand the oral tube seems to be quite extended, suggesting it is quite interested in something in the sand - certainly not a hydroid colony. If you can catch it eating I would love to see a photo or two.

• Waters, Virginia L. 1966. Food preference and feeding behaviour of four nudibranchs. Annual Reports American Malacological Union, 1966: 63.
• Roginskaya, I. S. 1964. A large-sized nudibranch mollusc Coryphella fusca, O'Donoghue - predator of small nudibranch molluscs - Coryphella rufibranchialis Johnston and Cuthona sp. Zoologicheskii Zhurnal, 43(11): 1717-1719. [In Russian].
• Roginskaya, I. S. 1990. Data of feeding, distribution and synonymy of Coryphella trophina (Bergh, 1894) (Nudibranchia: Gastropoda), pp. 47-57, 151-152, 156. [In]: Feeding and bioenergetics of marine bottom invertebrates. Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R., P. P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, Moscow.
•Zack, S. 1975. A description and analysis of agonistic behavior patterns in an opisthobranch mollusc, Hermissenda crassicornis. Behaviour,53(3-4): 238-267.

Best wishes,
Bill Rudman