Two colors for Bosellia mimetica
March 25, 2008
From: Miquel Pontes
Dear Bill,
We found three Bosellia mimetica specimens in our last dive. One of them was curious because it was not colored green as they are normally found here, but instead it was colored brown.
I could not found color variability documented in the bibliography for this species, despite I have seen in the Forum that these variations do exist.
These animals were found on Halimeda tuna, but curiously these algae were almost white in color and showing their calcified structure. Maybe the Halimeda algae were dying because of some other reasons, but could the Bosellias be the reason for the "bleaching" ?
Locality: Platja de Caials, Cadaqués, Costa Brava, 15 metres, Spain, Mediterranean Sea, 27 october 2007, Precoraligen rocky bottom. Length: 6-7 mm.. Photographer: Miquel Pontes.
Best regards,
Miquel Pontes
http://marenostrum.org
info@marenostrum.org
Dear Miquel,
It is certainly interesting to find a brown colour form in the Mediterranean. It certainly accords with Colin Redfern's find of similarly coloured animals in the Caribbean. [see message #6121]
Concerning white patches on the Halimeda - I had always presumed they were from the activities of the sacoglossans, and as you can see in the close-up, the white regions are often patches on the green background, much like the scrape marks left by a grazing limpet. However these animals don't feed by scraping or grazing, they pierce a hole through the skin and suck out the cell contents. Perhaps in this example each patch represents an area of the plant that has had its cell contents sucked out.
Best wishes,
Bill Rudman
Related messages
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Re: Two colors for Bosellia mimetica
From: Kathe R. Jensen, March 26, 2008 -
Bosellia mimetica from French Mediterranean
From: Marina Poddubetskaia, July 31, 2002 -
Bosellia mimetica in the Bahamas
From: Colin Redfern, February 3, 2002 -
Bosellia mimetica from Spain
From: Daco, October 5, 2000
