Eggs of Janolus cristatus

July 18, 2007
From: Richard Lord

Dear Bill:

In your reply to message #14537 regarding the identification of Janolus cristatus eggs you write "If you have a look at an earlier message[#1285], there is a photo of its egg ribbon, and although it has the same general shape, the individual eggs are relatively large and form a single row in the ribbon. In your egg ribbon the eggs are small and are in a multiple arrangement."

You will see in my photo here that Janolus cristatus eggs are not in a single row in the ribbon. I believe each 'pearl' in the ribbon is made up of numerous eggs. The eggs in the attached image were found by a pontoon in the Queen Elizabeth II marina in St. Peter Port harbour, Guernsey, Channel Islands.

Locality: Queen Elizabeth II marina, 10 cm, Guernsey, Great Britain, English Channel, Atlantic, 3 September 2005, marina pontoon. Length: 1 cm. Photographer: Richard Lord.

Best wishes,
Richard Lord

fishinfo@guernsey.net

Lord, R., 2007 (Jul 18) Eggs of Janolus cristatus. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/20089

Dear Richard,

Thanks for the photo. You are of course quite right -  I note in Thompson & Brown (1984) that Hecht back in 1895 thought that they were single eggs but Pelseneer (1935) noted that there could be up to 250 eggs in each of these egg-like capsules. My mistake in just looking at the photo and not checking.

  • Thompson, T.E. & Brown, G.H. (1984) Biology of Opisthobranch Molluscs, Vol 2. Ray Society: London.

Best wishes,
Bill Rudman

Rudman, W.B., 2007 (Jul 18). Comment on Eggs of Janolus cristatus by Richard Lord. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/20089

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Janolus cristatus

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