Marionia blainvillea

Ana Lama Marionia blainvillea

João Pedro Silva Juvenil. São muito distintos dos adultos.

Ana Lama Gracias Joao!!!! Un saludo

Andrew Thomson Found this one at Blairegowrie last night on one of the pylons approx 30mm in length

Ashley Missen Tritonia sp. page 401 Nev's book - Nice Find and Shot

Andrew Thomson Thanks Ash

Ken Thongpila This one is on my list guys :-) Nice find Andrew...

Gary Cobb Agreed Ash another undescribed species

Antoni López-Arenas Cama It's very similar to Marionia blainvillea: http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/mariblai

David Kipling Contrary to what Dawn Watson thinks, I do not have a supply of model nudibranchs that I take with me on dives ;) These are from the National Museum here in Wales, made of Fimo I think!

Christian Skauge I have a kit like this, bought on eBay from Japan :-)

João Pedro Silva My wife makes bijoux with Fimo professionally and I've been trying (for ages!) to convince her to do these models with the portuguese species.

Christian Skauge http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1550708580196&set=a.1157771997027.24269.1609584836&type=3&theater

João Pedro Silva Hurrah! I've shown my wife these models and she asked me to pick 6 species for her to make until June :)

Bernard Picton Tell your wife it's a very noble tradition. These glass models were traded widely and many museums still have some. There was a conference about them in recent years in Dublin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_and_Rudolf_Blaschka

Bernard Picton Christian Skauge, for your contact who wanted Glaucus, NM Wales have a Blaschka one!! http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/rhagor/galleries/blaschka/

Christian Skauge Do you have dates for June? Been away a few days (Nudibranch Safari, of course!) and haven't paid much attn to FB...

Bernard Picton Or July?

Christian Skauge Fantastic glass figures - I want one!!

Bernard Picton I doubt if you can afford one, I'm afraid. But if you visit Ireland we could try and get to see the ones in National Museum of Ireland. It was closed to the public, but I have contacts. http://www.ucd.ie/blaschka/

Christian Skauge Will do! I think I'll have to steal one, they seem a bit pricy... :-D

Bernard Picton Did you find a price?

João Pedro Silva Sorry, I don't have dates yet :(

João Pedro Silva I've sent a list of 8 species so she can pick 6: Flabellina babai, Hypselodoris villafranca (these are so common they are a "must"), Armina maculata, Marionia blainvillea, Diaphorodoris luteocincta, Dondice banyulensis, Chromodoris luteorosea, Cadlina pellucida. If these turn out ok I'm counting on you to convince her to the all the NE Atlantic species :)

David Kipling Okenia elegans of course!

Christian Skauge @ Bernard: Found no price, just a wild guess :-)

Gonçalo Calado Same with algarvian typical pastery http://www.imagesofportugal.net/media/471cd934-bdc1-11e0-acb5-57e8dc34769b-algarve-s-traditional-pastry-portugal

João Pedro Silva I usually describe Platydoris argo as a pancake orange underneath with sugar on top.

Bernard Picton Now don't go there... Seasearch keep inventing common names for things, Amphilectus fucorum = shredded carrot sponge - trouble is they are always food related...

Bernard Picton Pentapora was widely called ross coral (I think a typo for rose) but they invented potato crisp bryozoan....

Christian Skauge hahaha I always get hungry when finding a sea sausage :)

João Pedro Silva All the nudibranchs here in Portugal share on common name: "nudibranch". Except for Peltodoris atromaculata: "vaquinha suíça" (literally, "swiss cow", a dairy Holstein breed cow).

Becky Hitchin I have some plastic nudibranchs from Japan :)

David Kipling I have to say that I am disappointed that the National Museum (which tends to focus on welsh natural history) has a display of purely tropical nudibranchs! I think we should get João Pedro Silva's wife to make an extravagant set of NE Atlantic nudibranchs to replace them, to show that the Atlantic has species that can easily rival those in the tropics.

David Kipling Although we might have to make the Dotos a bit larger-than-life!

Jon Chamberlain I thought I would share this pic of a Tritonia hombergi, very common in the UK, mainly found on Alcyonium digitatum (dead man's fingers). They are usually 1-3cms long but this one was approx 12cms and moving across gravel. http://www.flickr.com/photos/underwaterinferno/8079898048/in/set-72157631752211790 The tropics have more than their fair share of stunning nudis, but this one is definitely one of my favourites. Depth: 15m, Temp 11 deg C, Longstone End, Farne Islands, UK

João Pedro Silva Every time I found Alcyonium digitatum I look for T. hombergi but no look until now. Probably a lot less common around these parts. Nevertheless, we do have another spectacular tritoniid: Marionia blainvillea :)

Jon Chamberlain At this time of year at the Farne Islands/St Abbs you would be hard pressed to find a piece of A. digitatum that didn't have them on! Here is another photo of what is the usual scene: http://www.flickr.com/photos/underwaterinferno/8088017992/in/photostream/ Depth: 15m, Temp: 11 deg C, Conger Reef, Eyemouth, Scotland.

João Pedro Silva The shallowest adult (way over 10cm long) Marionia blainvillea I've found. Not calling it futile: it was found only 8.5m deep. Most of the adults seen here in Portugal are found by technical divers. However, in Farilhões (Lat: 39,4725, Lon: -9,545), they're a common find near Paramuricea clavata around 20m deep.

João Pedro Silva Feeding habits: Marionia blainvillea feeding on Paralcyonium spinulosum. This was a very large adult (~7cm long) shot last October (water was 18ºC) in Farilhões (a group of small islets approximately 15km northwest of Peniche, Portugal), 25m deep. This spot has a vertical rock wall descending to -30m and some areas are densely covered with Paramuricea clavata. This individual was shot close to the gorgonians but it was very keen on eating Paralcyonium spinulosum instead. The gorgonians in this area often have the large egg masses and sometimes the small whitish translucent juveniles can also be found there. I wonder if any of you has already found M. blainvillea feeding on P. spinulosum.

João Pedro Silva Here's a video of this spot (Rabo de Asno... literally "Donkey's Tail", don't ask me why) by one of the local dive centers. It gives you a better idea of how the wall is covered by Paramuricea clavata: http://youtu.be/ws14mzy4_g0

João Pedro Silva A very large (7cm long) Marionia blainvillea feeding on Paralcyonium spinulosum. Lots of Paramuricea clavata around, lots of juveniles there, too... maybe this one was just getting a dessert.

João Pedro Silva The large and (apparently) easy to spot Marionia blainvillea....

João Pedro Silva ... is harder to detect than the small almost transparent juveniles. http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpsilva1971/6238668470/

Vinicius Padula João, qual o tamanho desses maiores?

João Pedro Silva ~7cm. Os juvenis tinham <1cm :)

Álvaro Velloso Que lindo este...

João Pedro Silva A strange association: 'Felimida' luteorosea crawling (for about an hour...) all over Myriapora truncata.

João Pedro Silva Even stranger, less than 1m away, another one doing the same: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpsilva1971/7651839804/ Coincidence? Possibly...

Joanne Porter Do you think the slug is laying eggs on the Myriapora?

João Pedro Silva I followed it for about 60 minutes and it wasn't laying eggs, at least not at that time. It was crawling around the "branches" of the bryozoan but not turning left like it does typically while spawning. To make this even more mysterious, less than 50cm away there was a smaller one doing the same: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpsilva1971/7651839804/ The eggs seen in this 2nd photo do not appear to be from F. luteorosea.

Tony Gilbert Interesting shot Joao. Are you compiling a list of food preferences for the Portuguese nudibranchs?

João Pedro Silva Food is well known for most of our species, so I haven't thought about doing a more serious compilation. Apart from putting the photos with animals feeding on a specific set on Flickr (when it's obvious they're feeding) or mentioning what kind of animals they prey upon I'm not doing such a list. There is a global compilation however based on published literature: http://www.theveliger.org/nudibranch_food.html Some older references have either misidentified the prey or just mention the animal was found on so and so (and jump to the conclusion it was feeding upon that particular animal, like these F. luteorosea on M. truncata). For a few species food is still a bit of a mystery.

João Pedro Silva Here's my "Feeding" set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpsilva1971/sets/72157626595504483/ It includes a couple of photos of Marionia blainvillea eating Paralcyonium spinulosum (I actually saw the slug biting large chunks from the top of the colonies) which I think was not documented yet.