Spurilla neapolitana from Saint-Tropez

August 26, 2005
From: Benjamin David-Testanière

Hi,
First sorry for my English ... I'm french photographer who is photographing some sea animals through the water.  Recently I have had on my website http://www.bdt-photos.com a sea slug picture.

Locality: Saint-Tropez, la pointe de Capon, France ( département du Var, 83 )  Mditerranean sea. Depth: 20 centimètres. 03 April 2005. Photographer: Benjamin David-Testanière

There was three specimens under a stone. I have put one of them on the stone for the picture.

Can you help me to identify it ?
Thanks to all !
Benjamin David-Testanière

bdt@bdt-photos.com

David-Testanière, B., 2005 (Aug 26) Spurilla neapolitana from Saint-Tropez. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/14609

Dear Benjamin,
This is Spurilla neapolitana. I see from your website you are partial to the beauty of orchids.  Spurilla neapolitana is not the most beautiful of nudibranchs, but it has a fascinating biology. It is one of a group that I call 'solar-powered' because they keep small plants alive in their bodies and utilise the sugars the plants produce from photosynthesis. As the plants need sunlight to photosynthesise,  Spurilla has developed a network of thin tubes throughout its skin for the plants to live in. You can see them as dark veins on the head and 'neck' in the lower right close-up. See also an earlier message [#7886] which shows these veins more clearly.

Another interesting feature in the lower right your photo are the purplish sausage-shaped objects on its back. They are the egg sacs of a copepod crustacean which seems to occur not uncommonly on this nudibranch. See also the Fact Sheet on symbiosis and an earlier message from Erwin Koehler [#1428] showing an animal heavily infested with these copepods.

In the lower left close-up, the white tips of the of the cerata can be seen in detail. We can see that the white is an elongate sac inside the ceratal tip which we call a cnidosac, because it stores stinging cells [cnidae, nematocysts] from the sea anemones it feeds on. Have a look at the relevant Fact Sheets for more information. Usually there is just one cnidosac at the tip of each ceras, but your close-up seems to have targetted an animal in which there are two cnidsacs and a bifid tip to most of the cerata.

Best wishes,
Bill Rudman

Rudman, W.B., 2005 (Aug 26). Comment on Spurilla neapolitana from Saint-Tropez by Benjamin David-Testanière. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/14609

Factsheet

Spurilla neapolitana

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