Armina sp. from Papua New Guinea

February 22, 2000
From: Mary Jane Adams

Hi Bill,

Here is a slug for your Armina page. It looks just one in Debelius' book that Rudie Kuiter photographed in Flores and Bali. I found this specimen on a day dive at Bunama Mission, Normanby Island, Papua New Guinea, March 19, 1998. It was crawling on clean sand at about 3 meters. What is the standard way to measure sea slugs? This one was a lot longer when moving than when sitting still.

Thanks!
Mary Jane Adams

mjadams@earthlink.net

Adams, M.J., 2000 (Feb 22) Armina sp. from Papua New Guinea. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/1842

Dear Mary Jane,
I think this is a species of Armina rather than Dermatobranchus ut an idea of its size would be useful. You have struck upon the difficulties of measuring nudibranchs - fundamentally they are not solid and so are regulrly changing shape. Normally they are measured from the tip of the head to the tip of the 'tail'/foot while they are crawling along. Despite the ability of many opisthobranchs to change their shape and length quite considerably, such measurements can be very useful, as long as we realise the measurement is rather different from measuring a solid shell.

As to what species? There are a large group of arminids with this pattern of longitudinal black lines. Until they are properly studied it is not possible to identify species.

Best wishes,
Bill Rudman.

Rudman, W.B., 2000 (Feb 22). Comment on Armina sp. from Papua New Guinea by Mary Jane Adams. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/1842

Factsheet

Armina? sp. 4.

Related messages

  1. Armina from the Philippines
    From: Erwin Koehler, May 21, 2002
  2. Re: Armina sp. 4. from Papua New Guinea
    From: Mary Jane Adams, February 23, 2000

Show factsheet and all related messages