Lomanoticola brevipes

Peter H van Bragt Copepod exoparasites on nudibranchs. Last week I found a cf Doridicola agilis on Flabellina lineata in the Eastern Scheldt, The Netherlands. As far as we know this is the very first observation of this copepod exoparasite on this nudibranch species. Over the past years we have found this copepod on various nudibranch species on the Dutch coast. Hosts are: L. clavigera, F. gracilis, F. auriculata, F. bostoniensis, J. cristatus (sometimes >100 parasites per host), J. hyalinus, A. glauca, A. papillosa, J. tomentosa and A. pilosa. On the initiative of Godfried van Moorsel, we have published two Dutch papers on these observations and now we are considering to publish also a paper in English in an international journal. Therefor we would like to call on you all to provide us with as many observations of D. agilis on these, but also on any other nudibranch species as possible. Please send us your observation with the following details: Host species, locality, number of parasites per host, date of the observation to peterunderwater[at]kpnplanet.nl. Cheers Peter H van Bragt

João Pedro Silva I've been putting up a set with parasites on nudibranchs so it'll be easy to send you observation records. Just not sure if you're interested in observations as far south as Portugal. http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpsilva1971/sets/72157626974078442/with/4767925300/

Peter H van Bragt Hello João Pedro Silva that's great. Any observations will do.

João Pedro Silva I suspect there are other parasites on the other photos outside that set.

Carissa Shipman I am still so fascinated with the copepods found on nudibranchs. They are very challenging to study however!

Rachel Shucksmith Hi Peter, are there more than one species of parasitic copepod associated with nudibranchs?

Rachel Shucksmith Also I have photos from Shetland of copepods on a species which is like F lineata, but Bernard thinks its an undescribed species, all of these individuals seemed to have parasites whereas the true F. lineata did not.

Peter H van Bragt Hi Rachel, there are for sure at least two species of copepod endoparasites in Nuidibranchs: Lomanoticola brevipes and Splanchnotrophus angulatus. So far and as far as know there is only one exoparasitic copepod on nudibranchs for Dutch waters known. And this is Doridicola agilis. But I'm sure there is no solid evidence that all exoparasitic copepods that we find are all one and the same species. Who has the time and expertise to do some research on this?????

Rachel Shucksmith hmmm yes fair point, a nice student project or retired professor? is there a key? I assume as I am a fair bit north of you there is a chance that they would be different species.