Re: Doriopsilla miniata and its egg-ribbons

July 18, 2003
From: Kirsten Benkendorff

Hi Bill and Marina,
I was interested to see your Marina's pictures of Doriopsilla areolata and its egg-ribbons. I agree with Bill that the adults look very similar to Doriopsilla miniata but the egg masses are quite different - see my picture of eggs deposited in the lab - same egg masses were observed with the adults in the field. The eggs are red not yellow, much larger and fewer in number!

Doriopsilla miniata collected from North Shellharbour, [near Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia] with egg ribbon deposited in aquaria, January, 1998

Cheers,
Kirsten

kirsten.benkendorff@flinders.edu.au

Thanks Kirsten,
Your photo and Marina's well illustrates the value of recording and identifying egg ribbons, feeding behaviour etc. Bob Rose (1985) reported that D. miniata had a form of direct development in which the embryo in the egg capsule, goes through a veliger stage but the veliger is not fully developed - they lack an operculum, the velum is much reduced etc - and then the larva metamorphoses into a small crawling slug before hatching. As we can see in Kirsten's photo, the eggs are much larger and fewer than in Marina's photos of the egg ribbons of D. areolata. I can find no information on the development type of the Atlantic D. areolata, but from the much smaller egg size I would suspect it is not a direct developer, and so despite their external similarity, these 2 species are clearly distinct.

• Rose, R. A. (1985} The spawn and development of twenty-nine New South Wales opisthobranchs (Mollusca: Gastropoda). Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, 108(1): 23-36.

Best wishes,
Bill Rudman.

Rudman, W.B., 2003 (Jul 18). Comment on Re: Doriopsilla miniata and its egg-ribbons by Kirsten Benkendorff. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/10469

Factsheet

Doriopsilla miniata

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