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Aplidium elegans
(Giard, 1872)
Nick Owen Lyme Bay about 24m
Nick Owen I'll get posting right in a while.... Any ideas on this pretty little Aplidium-type colony please? Whole colony about 1cm accross and showed up due to its colour.
Erling Svensen This one must be the Sidnyum turbinatum (yesterdays dive). But the next one?
David Kipling Nice to see the stalks of these - I'm used to them emerging from silt-covered rock faces. But yes, Aplidium turbinatum (it's changed from Sidnyum).
Erling Svensen WHY do the names change all the time. Frustrating, and not nice to all my pictures.... I HATE also this. Nice the weather is so nice and warm outside and that my holiday starts in 2 days....
David Kipling http://data.nbn.org.uk/gridMap/gridMap.jsp?allDs=1&srchSpKey=NHMSYS0020752559
David Kipling And it's also Aplidium elegans (not Sidnyum) and NBN has it as Aplidium elegans too.
David Kipling I dare say it is set up so that it recognises accepted synonyms and corrects it for you. Paula Lightfoot?
Marco Faasse Is this Aplidium elegans? (Rade de Brest, Brittany, May 2013)
Wilfried Bay-Nouailhat Yes, and next time you come around here...let us know ;-)
David Kipling It's got the 8-fold lobes around the oral siphons so it's not A nordmani (looks similar but has 6). So I wouldn't argue with that ID.
Wilfried Bay-Nouailhat Yes David 6 for A. nordmani and 8 for A. elegans
Marco Faasse Thanks Wilfried and David! Wilfried, will do!
Richard Yorke That just came at the right time and helped me identify an Aplidium elegans in Lyme Bay :-)
Marco Faasse This website may help ID certain species in (especially the south of) the UK: http://www.mer-littoral.org/flore-faune-marine.php
Richard Yorke Yes, I have come across that, and found it of some use, but not speaking French I can only look at the pictures and I don't get useful information like the number of folds which helped me greatly in this case.
Wilfried Bay-Nouailhat Sorry, the English version is still "work in process" ;-) Anne Bay-Nouailhat is "slow working" ^_^
Holly Latham Argh, that just confused me! Change of name again... Sidnyum elegans = Aplidium elegans. When'd that happen?!
David Kipling They're lumping the lumps ...
Matt Doggett haha - confusing ! Have to remember that one...
Wilfried Bay-Nouailhat The genus Sidnyum is no longer valid. To simplify, Monniot C. and Monniot F. 1987 considered that the number of lobes, varying inside some species of Sidnyum and Aplidium, can not be a sufficent character to distinguish the two genus.
David Kipling Leaving us with ~ 300 Aplidium sp. worldwide I believe?
Bernard Picton But genera are just a convenient way of grouping species. Although Darwin didn't explain the origin of species (the process of speciation) in his book of that name we have now had a long time since to study the process. We know that most speciation is a result of a single species splitting into a pair or a few as a result of geographic isolation of populations. So where we choose to put the divisions between genera is really arbitrary, one taxonomist's genus can be another's tribe. We don't have enough ranks in the Linnean system to name each branch in the tree. As we get more complete trees based on DNA sequences we find that most genera in organisms which have few morphological characters are simply guesses, often poor guesses. It is inconvenient to have a genus with 300 species, so it will get split into many. It is silly to have genera with only one species, so humans should be called Pan sapiens, not Homo at all.....
Marco Faasse But the Pope says Man is not an animal ... ;-)
Marco Faasse Is this Aplidium elegans? (Rade de Brest, Brittany, May 2013)
Wilfried Bay-Nouailhat Yes, and next time you come around here...let us know ;-)
David Kipling It's got the 8-fold lobes around the oral siphons so it's not A nordmani (looks similar but has 6). So I wouldn't argue with that ID.
Wilfried Bay-Nouailhat Yes David 6 for A. nordmani and 8 for A. elegans
Marco Faasse Thanks Wilfried and David! Wilfried, will do!
Richard Yorke That just came at the right time and helped me identify an Aplidium elegans in Lyme Bay :-)
Marco Faasse This website may help ID certain species in (especially the south of) the UK: http://www.mer-littoral.org/flore-faune-marine.php
Richard Yorke Yes, I have come across that, and found it of some use, but not speaking French I can only look at the pictures and I don't get useful information like the number of folds which helped me greatly in this case.
Wilfried Bay-Nouailhat Sorry, the English version is still "work in process" ;-) Anne Bay-Nouailhat is "slow working" ^_^
Holly Latham Argh, that just confused me! Change of name again... Sidnyum elegans = Aplidium elegans. When'd that happen?!
David Kipling They're lumping the lumps ...
Matt Doggett haha - confusing ! Have to remember that one...
Wilfried Bay-Nouailhat The genus Sidnyum is no longer valid. To simplify, Monniot C. and Monniot F. 1987 considered that the number of lobes, varying inside some species of Sidnyum and Aplidium, can not be a sufficent character to distinguish the two genus.
David Kipling Leaving us with ~ 300 Aplidium sp. worldwide I believe?
Bernard Picton But genera are just a convenient way of grouping species. Although Darwin didn't explain the origin of species (the process of speciation) in his book of that name we have now had a long time since to study the process. We know that most speciation is a result of a single species splitting into a pair or a few as a result of geographic isolation of populations. So where we choose to put the divisions between genera is really arbitrary, one taxonomist's genus can be another's tribe. We don't have enough ranks in the Linnean system to name each branch in the tree. As we get more complete trees based on DNA sequences we find that most genera in organisms which have few morphological characters are simply guesses, often poor guesses. It is inconvenient to have a genus with 300 species, so it will get split into many. It is silly to have genera with only one species, so humans should be called Pan sapiens, not Homo at all.....
Marco Faasse But the Pope says Man is not an animal ... ;-)
David Kipling Am I right in thinking that I should be referring to Sidnyum (eg elegans, turbinatum etc) more properly as Aplidium?
http://www.marbef.org/data/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=103441
David Kipling Actually it's Aplidium on NBN:
http://www.searchnbn.net/gridMap/gridMap.jsp?allDs=1&srchSpKey=NBNSYS0000177968
David Kipling Same is true for Aplidium elegans as well ...
David Kipling This probably explains why there are no records for these species in Norfolk ;)
David Kipling We have every intention - roll on Aug!
David Kipling Kate Lock and my carer are certainly coming. Does Becky Hitchin know about this as well?
David Kipling A week of squirts should temp Becky out of Kent ;)
Kate Lock Lalalalalalalalalalala I am with Dawn Watson on this one......
David Kipling So Kate and Dawn ... doesn't marine recorder beep an error at you when you try and enter Sidnyum (since it's out of date)?
Kate Lock I hate databases....and MR does not like Macs and I like Macs so I kindly pass on all the forms to that nice Jennifer Jones to do the MR entry and earn some extra winter holiday money!!
Jennifer Jones No David, it accepts Sidnyum but not Aplidium
David Kipling Aplidium nor Sidnyum on NBN and WoRMS... argh!!!
David Kipling But which is correct?
Paula Lightfoot According to WoRMS Aplidium is accepted and Sidnyum is unaccepted. MR will get there! http://www.marinespecies.org/msbias/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=103683
David Kipling Dawn's going to go all punk and rebellious on me and stick with Sidnyium now!
Becky Hitchin I'm sure I've managed to enter Aplidium into MR!
Paula LightfootAplidium elegans is in the MR look-up table (since Nov 07) but Aplidium turbinatum is not, only Sidnyum turbinatum.
Becky Hitchin and Aplidium punctum is in there I think?
David Kipling And hopefully Aplidium glabrum, nordmanni and pallidum?
Paula Lightfoot yes yes yes and yes! but I don't think punctum ever was a Sidnyum, whereas elegans and turbinatum were...I think...I'm getting confused by all these squirts!
David Kipling For those of us who use Habitas, it's really only these two Sidnyum/Aplidium species that are different between Habitas and NBN. Phew!
Jennifer Jones I wasn't saying Aplidium spp weren't recognised in MR, I was talking specifically about the species mentioned!
David Kipling I know, we just got paranoid Jen ;) Having spent way too long today going through every ascidian entry on NBN I am now a little spooked by just how many Didemnum species have been recorded in the UK. Those are going to end up in a "flat sheet with holes" category at this rate (alongside "thin orange crust", a phrase that covers a multitude of sins...).
Jennifer Jones Now maybe you understand why I won't name a lot of sponge crusts without thorough investigation!
Becky Hitchin At least D. vex is included in MR now :)
