Mexichromis kempfi from Little Cayman, BWI

November 26, 2008
From: Deborah Chambers

Howdy, Bill,

I think this is a pair of Mexichromis kempfi  that I photographed on Little Cayman Island in October 2008.

These are not real common on Little Cayman (or at least they're hard to spot!), so I thought I would submit the photo. It's the first time I've seen two of them together.

Locality: Little Cayman Island, 15 meters, Cayman Islands, BWI, Caribbean Sea, 19 October 2008, Spur and groove coral formations. Length: 20 mm. Photographer: Deborah Chambers.

Cheers,
Deborah Chambers

witw_deborah@yahoo.com

Chambers, D. S., 2008 (Nov 26) Mexichromis kempfi from Little Cayman, BWI. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/22075

Dear Deb,

Thanks for these photos. As you will see from earlier messages, these Caribbean animals with a whitish background colour are rather different from the darker blue animals from Brazil on which the species was based. I suspect we have enough intermediate colour forms to show that they are all colour forms of one species, but as Vinicius Padula suggested [message #19200], it would be valuable to compare the anatomy of these different forms.

It's intere sting to see another example of animals of M. kempfi following each other in single file like this [see trailing Fact Sheet]. If you do ever see this species laying eggs it would be nice to have a photo to compare with the one on Vinicius Padula's message. If the eggs of the Caribbean animals are different from those of the Brazilian animals, it would indicate we are probably dealing with more than one species.

Best wishes,
Bill Rudman

Rudman, W.B., 2008 (Nov 26). Comment on Mexichromis kempfi from Little Cayman, BWI by Deborah Chambers. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/22075

Factsheet

Mexichromis kempfi

Related messages

  1. Re: Mexichromis kempfi from Little Cayman, British West Indies
    From: Vinicius Padula, November 27, 2008
  2. Re: Mexichromis kempfi from Brazil
    From: Vinicius Padula, January 12, 2007
  3. Mexichromis kempfi from Brazil
    From: Armando de Luca Junior, January 10, 2007
  4. Mexichromis kempfi from Cozumel, Mexico
    From: Charles Hopf, October 27, 2006
  5. Mexichromis kempfi from Cozumel
    From: James Lyle, August 22, 2006
  6. Re: Nudibranch in Little Cayman?
    From: Matan Ninio, January 17, 2006
  7. Nudibranch in Little Cayman?
    From: Larissa Roorda, January 16, 2006
  8. Mexichromus kempfi from Bonaire
    From: Les Wilk, December 15, 2005
  9. Unknown chromodorid from Brazil
    From: Armando de Luca Junior, March 5, 2005
  10. Chromodoris kempfi - 'trailing' behaviour
    From: Andreas Ahrens, March 6, 2003
  11. Correct genus for Chromodoris kempfi
    From: Elianny Dominguez Tejo, March 19, 2002
  12. Chromodoris kempfi from Colombia
    From: Phanor Montoya, October 20, 2000
  13. Chromodoris kempfi? from Colombia's Caribbean coast
    From: P. Montoya, March 31, 2000
  14. Chromodoris kempfi from Florida
    From: Anne Dupont, October 11, 1999

Show factsheet and all related messages