Erwin Koehler Carmona et al. 2013 write on Spurilla neapolitana that the specimens from the Pacific coast of Costa Rica and from Japan "may be S. braziliana" how about those from Eastern Australia?
http://www.dragonmouse.com.au/diving/nudibase.php?action=nudidetail&id=243
Vinicius Padula As far I remember, they also may be S. braziliana.
Vinicius Padula The photo above fits exactly the morphotype we can find in Cabo Frio, southeastern Brazil.
Leila CB That's S. braziliana
João Pedro Silva Are all our (Portugal) variations of S. neapolitana "safe"? :)
Leila CB Mmmmm... I don't know... hahahahhahahhaha
Leila CB There's a new species from Huelva... and I don't know if it also can be found in Portugal..
João Pedro Silva Is it possible to distinguish from photos?
Leila CB Yeap
Leila CB Or at least almost always
João Pedro Silva Got some 8-9 specimen in these photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpsilva1971/tags/spurillaneapolitana/
Leila CB All of them are neapolitana... this species still has a great colour variability... I LOVE the purple one!! it's gorgeous!!! great photos!! thanks for sharing!!
João Pedro Silva (ufff! safe!) :)
Leila CB at least for now...
João Pedro Silva Thanks, Leila CB! The orange one was the "weirdest" to me. The smaller usually have that slight pink hue.
Leila CB hopefully, before the year ends you'll have a very nice paper about spurilla heheheh
Leila CB The orange one is quite common in Huelva, actually, that's colour type is very similar to the new species.... but we still found some differences (including molecular)
João Pedro Silva That one was from Tróia, near Setúbal, intertidal. But was the only I've seen with that colour.
Lucas CerCur I have nothing to tell after the statements of our Spurilla expert...
Leila CB hahahhahahhaha
Gary Cobb Glad I could help!!
Erwin Koehler thanks, time for Ashley Missen to change his website...
Ashley Missen Thanks Erwin - Has any one got the full Details on this as I will update the database (Give me a bit of time to seperate) - Gary is normally the one that give me these guys in his stats - Cheers Ash
Gary Cobb When you received these photos they were known as the old name:)
Claudio Giulianini L'amico Mauro mi suggerisce il nome scientifico di : Spurilla Neapolitana (predilige le acque fredde e si nutre di attinie) - Nikon D200 - Nikon 105 macro - Sea&sea YS90 - Sea&sea YS60 - Manual focus
Angelo Mojetta Chi direbbe mai che ci possono essere simili meraviglie in certi posti. Curiosa la formazione rotonda sul dorso nella metà anteriore del corpo. E il nome del nudibranco?
Claudio Giulianini Per il nome di questo alieno mi trovi impreparatissimo.... chiedo agli amici Attilio e Mauro se riescono a classificarlo.
Claudio Giulianini Mauro mi suggerisce il nome scientifico di : Spurilla Neapolitana (predilige le acque fredde e si nutre di attinie) - Nikon D200 - Nikon 105 macro - Sea&sea YS90 - Sea&sea YS60 - Manual focus
João Pedro Silva Solar powered Spurilla neapolitana. A fully grown adult 7cm long, they grow a lot more near the surface. This was taken ~4m deep in Arrábida, Portugal.
Canon EOS 350D, Ikelite housing, 18-55mm, 21mm extension tube, +4 diopter, f/36, 1/200s, ISO 100, 2x Nikonos SB-105 strobes.
João Pedro Silva How big was this, Orietta? I've found many while diving but rarely over 2cm long... but in shallow depths (sometimes less than 2m) I've seen them 7cm long.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpsilva1971/6751672883/
João Pedro Silva The smaller ones are less brown (most probably less zooxanthellae):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpsilva1971/6986260316/
Orietta Rivolta This nudibranch is about 40mm long and i found at 4 meters depth.
Amir Chadraoui Awesome pic! This one is very different from those we find here in Brazil.
João Pedro Silva I have another variation:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpsilva1971/6828035634/
João Pedro Silva And the smaller found deeper are pinkish:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpsilva1971/6681413497/
Gary Gubby ˚͜˚ not seen these before,st abbs,10mtr on rocky bottom covered with brittlestars and plumose anemones
João Pedro Silva I think these are the eggs of an aeolid nudibranch. Determining the species may not be that easy unless you catch them "in the act".
Gary Gubby ˚͜˚ they were found not too far from several aeolidia papillosa nudis
João Pedro Silva And that's a strong suspect. Here it could easily be attributed to Spurilla neapolitana, too, athough this species is more often found spawning intertidally.
Ian Smith I don't think this is A. papillosa spawn which is a tight spiral which is then arranged in a larger spiral. There is a very good image of it on Bernard's online Encyclopedia of Marine life. Yours is a loose single spiral like a spring. It resembles more http://www.conchsoc.org/node/5272 , but I don't think it safe to identify it positively as Janolus. Can you crop in close enough to show the ova? J.hyalinus has few large capsules (many ova hidden within each); only 3 or 4 fit across the width of the string. A. papillosa has many more.
David Kipling Surely the spawn is too big for J hyalinus? Looking at the size of the brittle stars in the background this looks to be a big spawn coil, hence needing something chunky to lay it like A papillosa.
Ian SmithJanolus cristatus grows to a chunky 75mm and has similar form of spawn to J. hyalinus (26mm). I don't think it possible to say exactly what it is, but feel sure it's not A. papillosa.
David Kipling I'm pretty confident Gary's is not J cristatus spawn. His is a long spiral thread, J cristatus is laid out as a zip-zig disc with very visible white balls. I see loads of cristatus spawn in Bugula rich dive sites with loads of adults around (it usually triggers me to look for the adults!). However, I've only ever see hyalinus once and not with spawn, so can't comment on what that looks like. Are you thinking Gary's is cristatus or hyalinus spawn Ian?
David Kipling Here's a link to a classic cristatus spawn spiral for reference:
http://www.seaslug.org.uk/nudibranchs/repro.html
Ian Smith David as I said, I don't think its possible to say exactly what it is, but I don't think it's papillosa.
David Kipling So if it's not cristatus or papillosa I wonder what it is? Perhaps it's not a nudibranch, would that be possible?
Ian Smith Discarded noodles from Chinese takeaway.
Ian Smith Maybe Gary will post a close up so we can discern ova capsules.
Gary Gubby ˚͜˚ tried to blow picture up but only distorts the picture,you cannot make out any more detail :-( but many thanks for all the input,i am still new to this identification thing so all help is greatly appreciated
Gary Gubby ˚͜˚ could these be the eggs from Tritonia hombergi,they look very similar,just looking through great british marine animals by Paul Naylor?
David Kipling Was there any dead man's finger in the area Gary?
Gary Gubby ˚͜˚ yes,plenty of them,st abbs is covered in dead mans fingers
Ian Smith Looks like you've done your own id Gary, congrats! Alder and Hancock in their great monograph, published 1845-1855, wrote: "The spawn is deposited in the form of a gelatinous yellowish-white cord, about the thickness of a small whip-cord of great length and very much convoluted." Form and size both fit your image.
João Pedro Silva Has anyone ever did a "heat map" of the number of species observed per time of the year? For instance, here in Portugal in May-June one can see 20+ species in a single dive but barely exceeding 10 species during the winter months.
Brendan Oonk Thanks to "Stichting Anemoon" and their MOO-project we have good data on seasonal occurance of nudibranches in the Netherlands. The molluscs Atlas that will be published next year contains some graphs showing this seasonal shift. It might be posible to combine these graphs with watertemperature data..... Not sure who has the time, and the wish to do this though
João Pedro Silva Looking forward to see the Atlas. My idea for that map was restricted to the NE Atlantic where we have some species occurring more frequently in different periods in different areas, like Limacia clavigera or Polycera quadrilineata. Not sure these yearly variations are temperature related.
Peter H van Bragt Hello Joao, best nudi spotting along the Dutch coast is for sure late spring (May-July). up to 15-18speciesin a weekend by a single diver. Water temp is than approx 14-16 degrees C, I do not have the data with me where I am now. As far as I know the record is 13 species on one single dive out of a total of 57 species ever been recorded in the Netherlands. Winter time water temps drop here to 0-2 degrees C. Few nudis like this, but most species larvae seem to survive OK. Cheers Peter
João Pedro Silva Thanks, Peter! That period coincides with the peak of nudibranch diversity also here in Portugal, only with a few exceptions like Cadlina laevis and Spurilla neapolitana which appear to be more frequent during the winter. Yes, many species can be found at any time, namely most Felimare villafranca, Felimare cantabrica, 'Felimida' purpurea, Flabellina babai and others. Water temperature has been "strange" during the past few years frequently with 18-19ºC during autumn and 13-14ºC in August. But the temperatures here are usually between 13ºC-19ºC, being 15-16ºC the most common values (and these can occur at any time of the year, it's 16ºC right now).
I don't know the "national record" but my personal record until last June was something like 18 or 19 species during a single dive... then I had several dives over 20 species until I got to see 26 during a single dive on the 20th of June.
Peter H van Bragt Hello Joao, we also have some typical winter species, e,g. Aeolidia papillosa: juveniles start in september, they develop through winter, spawn and die in early spring. At your place water temps seem to be rather stable, here they differ greatly between summer and winter and this causes big differences in biodiversity. How large is the Portugese nudi fauna list (incl. species that are extreme rare or have not been seen for a while)?
João Pedro Silva We have ~140 nudibranch species. Latest checklist (2004) has 215 opisthobranchs. Mine and Gonçalo Calado's recent field guide has 115 species (95 nudibranchs and 20 other opisthobranchs) including some which were not included for Portugal in the 2004's checklist (yet present in the checklist as it includes the entire Iberian Peninsula plus the archipelagos of Açores, Madeira, Canarias and Baleares).
Christian Skauge A very strange aeolid found at Gulen Dive Resort, Norway, 09.04.2011, approximately 22 meters. I have no idea about this one! F. verrucosa has been suggested. Any thoughts?
Christian Skauge Sorry, forgot about size - saw them from 2-4 cm long, approximately.
Robert Eriksson F verrucosa, is not likely. Pappilae semmes to be in the anerior part of rhinophores, and cerata to furry. Seems to be pedunculate as well, protruding from sides eather than back... Will thinkmore about this!
Christian Skauge Thanks Robert, we really need help on this one! It's one of the trickiest slugs I've come across in Norway, and I really have no idea what to make of it.
Christian Skauge When I say 'we' it's because I found this on dives with Bjørnar Nygård - he's got some images of them too. But no-one has been able to help us with the identification, so I'm really hanging my hope on all you experts in this group :-)
Bernard Picton Berghia has rhinophores like this, and I think the digestive gland in the cerata branched like this. I only know of tropical and Mediterranean Berghia though, have to look it up.
Christian Skauge Oooh, please do!! That would have been somewhat of a sensation, don't you think?
Bernard Picton http://www.european-marine-life.org/14/photo-berghia-verrucicornis-ml10.php
Christian Skauge Quite similar, but more slender. Ours could be freezing though... Found another one also quite similar - Anteaeolidiella indica. Still looking into it regarding knobbly-wobbly (correct scientific term, yes?) rhinophores.
http://www.gastropods.com/0/Shell_49710.shtml
João Pedro Silva A few months ago I've seen some photos by Cláudio Brandão of an animal similar to this one. Cláudio, could you post one here please? Lucas Cervera suspected it was Spurilla neapolitana but the ones I've found that deep were pinkish. Yet, they vary a lot and those near the surface I've found here were brown (more zooxanthellae?).
Christian Skauge Wow, wait a minute! We DO have one Berghia species in Norway - Berghia norvegica (Odhner, 1939). I am however completely unable to find a single image online...
Christian Skauge Jussi; take a look at this! Remember the two specimens I gave you last year? This is one of them. Maybe we have a Berghia on our hands, that would be fun! If you have the time, please check your references ;-)
Christian Skauge Is even this one a possibility? Almost the same "kissable lips" in the first picture, and many similartities. Still can't find any info on the rhinophores though...
http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/aeolsang
Christian Skauge A lot of thinking aloud here, please bear with me... After reading up on it, I believe we can rule out Aeolidiella sp. They should have smooth rhinophores. Bernard, your Berghia theory looks stronger and stronger! But - is ist a B. verrucicornis or the (at least online) almost mythical B. norvegica?
Bernard Picton Ha! Look I'll be away for a few days, so can't follow this up. But if Odhner had a Berghia in Norway that sounds good. Do you know there's a database of available names at WoRMS. It's not perfect yet, but a good place to start.
Bernard Picton http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=138718
Christian Skauge Yes, I checked it and there is not much info on this. It seems there are two initial records of it from the 30'ies, and that it has not been seen since. I will place my trust in Jussi, he has the original paperwork at hand, I think :-)
Jussi Evertsen If this is a Berghia, a quick look at the teeth would give us the answer in no time - did anyone collect any specimens? I cant recall seeing it at Gulen in march last year.
Christian Skauge I handed you two specimens when I stopped by in Trondheim in mid-April, 2010. This was one of them :-)
Jussi Evertsen Right, I will have to arrange some workdays at the museum ASAP then :)
Christian Skauge Me like :-)
Jussi Evertsen Well, we have had a go at the small specimen that Christian gave to us here in Trondheim, and we can confirm so far that the rhinophores are papillate and that the arrangement of the cerata are quite distinct. The molecular results puts it toghether with the aeolidiid nudibranchs as a separate species. However, since this is our only specimens we are reluctant to start cutting out the radula since it is so small and fragile, so we will put it on hold until we find more specimens at the workshop in Gulen in the end of March.
Christian Skauge woo-hoo exciting news! I say cut away - we'll find more, I am sure of it :-D
Christian Skauge Have forgotten to update on this post: A couple days before the Nuidbranch Safari at Gulen I did a dive to see if I could find this strange slug again - and lo and behold I did! Not just once - it kept turning up in good numbers all through the safari. We collected several specimens, egg masses and shot some video of it also to capture the rather peculiar behaviour. Jussi & Torkild seems to me more and more sure it is in fact a Berghia norvegica. We're still awaiting confirmation though, so stay tuned :-)
Robert Eriksson Christian Skauge, here's a comment on my previous comment... After this weekends nudie-frenzy I recalled some long forgotten images of juvenile F. verrucosa. Juvenile F. verrucosa looks almost like the one in your photo (dense furry cerata), but they still have the typical white pigments on rhinophores, oral tentacles and cerata. Sometimes F. verrucosa have wrinkled/knobbly/wobbly rhinophores so they are polymorphic when it comes to the rhinphore structure. So, the only way of ruling out your animal from being a juvenile F. verrucosa is the white pigmentation and the size, and similar looking animals with eggs or eggs in body in the vincinity. Obviously you can always look at radula, but without killing the animal your are indeed confined to white pigmentation and size. Both of which are not the best (stabile) characters...
Christian Skauge Your point being...? The radula will tell us tomorrow, I just got word - but there will be a cold day in a certain place before this is a F. verrucosa... :-)
Deb Aston This one found by my buddy Patrik today at the Seaway, 10mm. Anyone know what it is?
Matthias Wildermuth So what is the id now? Sure gary or ash would know!!
Deb Aston Waiting to hear back from Dr Richard Willan, will post as soon as I know.
Gary Cobb Richard says...The photo (IMG 2333) stopped my heart. It is certainly Eubranchus inabai (see http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/eubrinab) and this is the second record for Australia. Eubranchus inabai first arrived in Australia about the same time as Godiva quadricolor got here, certainly well before Spurilla neapolitana, but it was only ever found at the entrance to Wallis Lake, Tuncurry, New South Wales, in 1988. Because there have been no subsequent records, E. inabai was assumed to have died out in Australia. So this specimen from the Coolangatta seaway either represents a range extension or a reinvasion. Either way, it will be wonderfully exciting to know if it persists or vanished from there. Everyone must keep their eyes open for this distinctive little fellow.
Gary Cobb Hey Deb did you collect it?? Hummmm....you know the drill!
Patrik Good Thank you for the ID. Exciting and I think I will smile about it for a while: it was my first go at nudibranching and I have only seen about 20 different nudi species in my diving life. It is still Deb's merit that this one got documented and photographed.
Deb Aston Heh Gary didn't see it unfortunately so can't be held responsible for not collecting it. Will certainly go looking for more and take my squeezy bottle. Well done Patrik!
