Micromelo undata - developing veligers

November 16, 2006
From: Philibert Bidgrain

Dear Bill,

To accompany my earlier message #18354, here are some microscopic photos of the developing larvae of Micromelo undata in the egg ribbon. You will see that in this species there is only one larva in each capsule. [The photo was taken 6 days after spawning].

Philibert Bidgrain

pbidgrain@yahoo.fr

Bidgrain, P., 2006 (Nov 16) Micromelo undata - developing veligers. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/18368

Dear Philibert,
The veliger larvae are quite well developed for only 6 days. Did you by chance have a look at the egg mass on the day of hatching? It would be interesting to know if the 'larvae' were just a single-celled egg or a few celled embryo at that time. I have observed that some acteonids and their relatives can brood their egg in the mantle cavity or in the reproductive ducts and only actually 'lay' the egg ribbon when the larvae are almost at the veliger stage. It would be interesting to know of Micromelo did that as well.

You can see these veligers have well-developed shells and very large velar lobes. The large hair-like structures you can see are the large cilia which line the edge of the large velar lobes which sit on each side of the mouth and are used in swimming.

Best wishes,
Bill Rudman

Rudman, W.B., 2006 (Nov 16). Comment on Micromelo undata - developing veligers by Philibert Bidgrain. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/18368

Factsheet

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