First sighting of Doris ocelligera in the UK

August 21, 2009
From: David Kipling

Concerning message #21978:

Dear Bill,

Here is a picture of Doris ocelligera that Sarah and I saw in Cornwall in 2003. It has only recently been identified (by Bernard Picton), and until then had been languishing in a section of our digital picture archive labeled "we don't know what this is"!

Locality: Wreck of the Alice Marie, Mount's Bay, Penzance, 25 m, Cornwall, United Kingdom, Atlantic, 25 June 2003, Wreck covered with weed and short animal turf on sandy seabed. Photographer: David Kipling.

We saw two additional specimens the following year slightly east of this location, which I will submit in a second post [message #22612].

Best regards

David Kipling
Cardiff, UK

plankton@dircon.co.uk

Kipling, D., 2009 (Aug 21) First sighting of Doris ocelligera in the UK. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/22611

Dear David,

I have just received a message from Julia Nunn [#22598] with a record of this species from Devon in May 2004. As I note in her message, it is very valuable to get three separate observations like this. It certainly appears to be more than a single strange event. 

With records from the Atlantic coasts of Spain and Portugal (Cervera et al, 2006), this increases its known distribution  as far north as the UK.

  • Cervera, J. L., Calado, G., Gavaia, C., Malaquias, M. A. E., Templado, J., Ballesteros, M., Garci­a-Gomez, J. C., & Megina, C. (2006) An annotated and updated checklist of the opisthobranchs (Mollusca: Gastropoda) from Spain and Portugal (including islands and archipelagos). Boleti­n Instituto Espanol de Oceanografi­a  20: 1-122.

Best wishes,
Bill Rudman

Rudman, W.B., 2009 (Aug 21). Comment on First sighting of Doris ocelligera in the UK by David Kipling. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/22611

Factsheet

Doris ocelligera

Related messages

  1. Another UK sighting of Doris ocelligera
    From: David Kipling, August 21, 2009
  2. Second? record of Doris ocelligera from the UK
    From: Julia Nunn, August 21, 2009
  3. Doris ocelligera from Arcachon bassin, France
    From: Michel Barrabés, October 29, 2008
  4. Doris ocelligera from Italy
    From: Cristian Magnani, September 8, 2006
  5. Dorid from Tunisia
    From: J. Ben Souissi and A. Eters, July 29, 2003

Show factsheet and all related messages