Information on Nudibranch biology

January 28, 1999
From: Christian Desprez

Dear sir,
Fistly many thanks for your complete site about slug, that permit me to learn many species about nudibranch. I'm a french diver and president of a diving club with an extension to our county with a biology commission. To learn about oceanology, I had decided to learn more about nudibranch, but with many research and many books around the world, some questions are again open.

What is the duration of life for a slug?
Is it possible that some different species could procreate ?
Approximately, how many different sort of eggs presentations did you know ?
What are the normal season for reproduction ?
And for the last, Where I could find information on the web about defense system and anatomy picture of slug ?

Christian Desprez.

Christian.DESPREZ@wanadoo.fr

Desprez, C., 1999 (Jan 28) Information on Nudibranch biology. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/515

Dear Christian,
I'm glad you find the Forum useful. New material is being added all the time and hopefully I will get time to add some anatomical pictures. If you or your diving friends have photos and observations you would like to put on the Forum site, I would be glad to have them.

To answer your questions:
* What is the duration of life for a slug?
Most species seem to live for about one year, although the tropical Sea Hare Dolabella auricularia can live for six years in an aquarium and the Antarctic cephalaspidean Philine gibba can live for up to four and a half years in nature. On the other hand there are small nudibranchs, especially those that live and feed on short-lived cnidarian colonies which have extremely short life cycles. For example both the European aeolid Tenellia pallida and the coral-eating tropical aeolid Cuthona poritophages can mature in three weeks, and probably die within two or three months.

* Is it possible that some different species could procreate?
I guess you are asking whether different species can mate together. There is no evidence that I know of different species mating together. In fact I have many times confined different species together in small containers, and while animals of the same species often mate in confined spaces, I have never seen different species do so. They appear to have good chemical signals to identify their own kind.

* Approximately, how many different sort of eggs presentations did you know?
If you have a look at the list of GENERAL TOPICS you will see that a number refer to eggs. Also use the "Search the Forum" button on the right side of the yellow bar at the top of this message to look for other references to eggs in the Forum. At some stage I plan to prepare a page on different types of egg masses, but I haven't had time as yet.

* What are the normal season for reproduction?
In temperate waters they normally breed in early spring and sometimes there is a second period of egg-laying in late summer. In tropical waters egg-laying is also often seasonal, but can also be dependent on food supply, some species apparently breeding throughout the year.

* Where I could find information on the web about defense system and anatomy picture of slug?
Have a look at the GENERAL TOPICS page on the Forum. There are a number of pages devoted to Opisthobranch Defence. I'm afraid I don't know of a website with good anatomical drawings.

Best wishes,
Bill Rudman.

Rudman, W.B., 1999 (Jan 28). Comment on Information on Nudibranch biology by Christian Desprez. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/515

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