Siphopteron quadrispinosum from Red Sea

April 15, 2008
From: Nils Anthes

Concerning message #11918:

Dear Bill,
Just want to add a finding that indicates a rather wide distribution of Siphopteron quadrispinosum throughout the Indopacific region. The attached image shows a mating pair of this species that we found near Dahab (Egypt) last week.

Locality: Napoleon reef, Dahab, 3 m, South Sinai, Egypt, Red Sea, 06 April 2008, coral sand. Length: ~ 2 mm. Photographer: Nils Anthes.

 By the way, readers interested in the very intriguing mating behaviour of this species (combining hypodermic injection with regular insemination) may be interested in the following publication:

  • Anthes, N. & N.K.Michiels (2007): Precopulatory stabbing, hypodermic injections and unilateral copulations in a hermaphroditic sea slug. Biology Letters, 3: 121-124.

Best regards
Nils

nils.anthes@uni-tuebingen.de

Anthes, N., 2008 (Apr 15) Siphopteron quadrispinosum from Red Sea. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/21525

Thanks Nils,

Even with your message showing colour variation in this species [#11943], I would hesitate to identify this as S. quadrispinosum. If you have any photos of an 'untangled' animal it might be valuable.

Thanks for the reference to your interesting paper. If you have a list of your publications on mating behaviour in the cephalaspids, it would be good to include that as well

Best wishes,
Bill Rudman

Rudman, W.B., 2008 (Apr 15). Comment on Siphopteron quadrispinosum from Red Sea by Nils Anthes. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/21525

Factsheet

Siphopteron quadrispinosum

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