Dorid from Florida, USA
March 13, 2001
From: Anne DuPont
Bill,
Last month [Feb 10, 2001] I was diving off West Palm Beach in about 12 feet of water when I found this critter. It was about 3 inches long.
Can you identify it for me?
Thank you for all your help.
Cordially,
Anne DuPont
adupont@gate.net
DuPont, A., 2001 (Mar 13) Dorid from Florida, USA. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/3815Dear Anne,
From your photos this animal is a species of Discodoris. Apart from the general shape and the papillate mantle, one feature quite typical of the genus is the piece broken off the side of the mantle. This ability to break off pieces of the mantle is called autotomy and is a defensive strategy much like a lizard dropping its tail.
I can't be sure which species this is. Eveline Marcus (1977) list 8 species of Discodoris from the Caribbean region, though I have no idea how many of those are valid species or even species of Discodoris.
Discodoris evelinae Marcus, 1955 is reported from Florida to swim and autotomise parts of its mantle (Marcus, 1967) and Discodoris pusae Marcus, 1955 is reported from Jamaica to also swim and autotomise the mantle (Thompson, 1980). D. evelinae is reported to have penial spines while D. pusae does not.
So basically I can't b sure which species you have. Hopefully there is someone with local knowledge who can help.
References:
• Marcus, Er (1955) Opisthobranchia from Brazil. Boletim da Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciencias e Letras. Universidade de Sao Paulo, Zoologia, 20: 89-261. (Pls. 1-30)
• Marcus, Ev (1977) An annotated checklist of the western Atlantic warm water opisthobranchs. J. Moll. Stud. (Suppl. 4): 1-23.
• Thompson, T.E. (1980) Jamaican opisthobranch molluscs: II. J. Moll. Stud., 46(1): 74-99.
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