Re: What's wrong with Elysia clarki?

September 8, 2006
From: Skip Pierce

Concerning message #17766:

Hi Bill,
Hope you enjoying your holiday. I continue to be puzzled a bit about this issue. Your response to this message shows how easy it is to distinguish E. clarki from E. crispata, even from photos. I agree with your ID's. The photos in this message from Florida and the Bahamas are clearly E. crispata, while the Belize specimen is E. clarki. Again, I would like to stress that we have looked at thousands of E. clarki over a decade now. There is simply nowhere near the morphological variation in them that Valdez' claims. On the other hand, E. crispata does indeed show some variation, as the photos show, but not that overlap with E. clarki. I've attached another picture of several E. crispata taken by our colleague Colin Finney. You will first note the wide color variation - which never occurs in E. clarki - but the foot, parapodial fusion and blunt posterior end are all signature E. crispata. As our paper points out, we did look at probably 40-50 museum specimens from all around the Caribbean and the Bahamas, collected by many people over many decades. There is just no doubt that E. clarki is a distinctive species. Further morphological and habitat variation cannot just be switched on and off. My guess is that the extensive collecting proposed by Valdes (not nearly as easy to arrange as suggested by the way) might find that there are even more species currently being identified as E. crispata.

Locality: St. Thomas Virgin Islands, Caribbean. Photographer: Colin Finney.

Skip Pierce

pierce@cas.usf.edu

Pierce, S.K., 2006 (Sep 8) Re: What's wrong with Elysia clarki?. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/17774

Dear Skip,

Thanks for this 'dish' shot showing variability in E. crispata. With a little digital magic I have rearranged the animals into three enlargements to show some detail.

Best wishes,
Bill Rudman

Rudman, W.B., 2006 (Sep 8). Comment on Re: What's wrong with Elysia clarki? by Skip Pierce. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/17774

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