Hypselodoris saintvincentius from South Australia

November 28, 2001
From: Stuart Hutchison


Hi Bill,
The upper photo is H. infucata from Port Hughes, South Australia in May 2000 (about 70mm long in 7m of water). It was a very nice specimen. The other photo was from Wallaroo, about 20km away. There, the grain conveyors spill grain dust into the water on a regular basis, which forms a soft silt on the bottom. For some reason there are usually thousands of H. infucata clinging to the smaller algae covered rocks under the jetty where the silt accumulates.

Regards,
Stuart

stuart@stuarthutchison.com.au

Hutchison, S., 2001 (Nov 28) Hypselodoris saintvincentius from South Australia. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/5686

Dear Stuart,
Thanks for these interesting photos. This animal is in fact Hypselodoris saintvincentius, which looks very like Hypselodoris infucata, but is apparently a southern relative of that widespread Indo-West Pacific species. Hypselodoris obscurafrom southeastern Australia, is another very similarly coloured species.

I suspect why you find it clustered in groups on rocks, is that the rocks are the only place that their sponge food can attach and grow. I may be imagining it but the rock on which your animals are clusterd seems to have a greyish-blue sponge growing on it like the one in my photo at the top of the page. I am not sure just how soft the grain dust sediment is but if the slugs can't crawl on it then they may be essentially prisoners on each rock. They possibly arrived as planktonic larvae and are stuck there until the food runs out. perhaps next time you are there you could check out the rocks to see if there is a layer of sponge on them, and perhaps put a couple of slugs temporarily on the grain dust sediment and see if they can crawl on it. If you ever come across them laying eggs, I would love to see a photo of their egg mass.
Best wishes,
Bill Rudman

Rudman, W.B., 2001 (Nov 28). Comment on Hypselodoris saintvincentius from South Australia by Stuart Hutchison. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/5686

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