Doto orcha from the Red Sea

February 2, 2006
From: Binyamin Koretz

Dear Bill,
Since you and other Forum contributors have been sharing a lot of material on Doto spp, I would like to share our photos of what we think is Doto orcha Yonow, 2000.

I think that it's fairly rare, but since it's hard to see, I couldn't say whether that's the real reason why it's seldom seen.

Locality: Eilat, "University", Israel, Red Sea (Gulf of Eilat). Depth: 6 m. Length: 8 mm. 15 July 2005. corals. Photographer: Binyamin and Shulamit Koretz

Best regards
Binyamin

binyamin@koretz.net

Koretz, B., 2006 (Feb 2) Doto orcha from the Red Sea. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/15715

Dear Binyamin,
It's nice to get a Doto from elsewhere in the world. I suspect you are right in identifying this as Doto orcha but since it was described from a single specimen - and we know how difficult Doto species are to distinguish - it is difficult to be 100% sure if the differences are just part of the normal intraspecies variation or not. For example your animal is proportionally much longer than Yonow's, but I don't know if that is just because yours was crawling and Yonow's was at rest on a hydroid. In your animal the cerata are proportionally much smaller compared to the size of the body than in Yonow's. Also she described a distinct beige band down the dorsal midline, which is absent in your animal, and yours show a distinct dark spot at the inner base of each cerata.

I suspect they are the same, but it illustrates the problems when species are described on single specimens.

Best wishes,
Bill Rudman

Rudman, W.B., 2006 (Feb 2). Comment on Doto orcha from the Red Sea by Binyamin Koretz. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/15715

Factsheet

Doto orcha