Thuridilla hopei: nice mating behaviour

September 14, 2005
From: Marina Poddubetskaia Ossokine

Dear Bill,

I have seen many opisthobranchs mating, but these 2 Thuridilla hopei seems particularly romantic, embraced lovely like this.  I saw these animals coming to each other, 'embracing', mating and separating in less than 5 minutes. They are quite a quick 'lovers' :-)

Locality: 'La digue', Port-Leucate, France. Mediterranean. Depth: 2 m. Length: 9 mm. 12 September 2005. Photographer: Marina Poddubetskaia Ossokine

Also, in one photo the penis is well visible. So maybe, these photos could be valuable for the Forum.

Best wishes,
Marina.
Nembro website

nembro@nembro.info

Poddubetskaia Ossokine, M., 2005 (Sep 14) Thuridilla hopei: nice mating behaviour. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/14769

Dear Marina,
Thanks for these photos. I am always interested in photos illustrating aspects of sea slugs' biology. Mating in sacoglossans is quite interesting because many of them practice hypodermic impregnation in which a spine at the tip of the penis is used to pierce a hole in the body wall and sperm is injected directly into the body cavity, A temporary sac is rapidly formed to contain the sperm. From a quick reading of the literature, I am pretty sure no species of Thuridilla exhibits this behaviour, altrhough some species of Elysia do.

One thing that does puzzle me is that all species of Thuridilla seem to have a sperm sac for receiving incoming sperm [bursa copulatrix] which has its own separate external opening, but no internal connection to the rest of the reproductive system. I wonder how sperm gets from the sac to fertilise the eggs? We still have a lot to learn.
Best wishes,
Bill Rudman

Rudman, W.B., 2005 (Sep 14). Comment on Thuridilla hopei: nice mating behaviour by Marina Poddubetskaia Ossokine. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/14769

Factsheet

Thuridilla hopei

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