Okenia rhinorma from Lembeh, Indonesia

October 3, 2008
From: Bill Rudman

Concerning message #8751:

Every know and then I have a look through the unidentified pages [which are at the end of the General Topics list] to see if any of these 'lost' animals can now be identified. To my surprise, I instantly recognised Danny van Belle's photo as the Okenia I recently described as  Okenia rhinorma . It's interesting how our brain can sometimes become slightly rewired after we learn something new - unfortunately I wish it was more than just 'sometimes'. Danny had tentatively identified his animal as a species of Thecacera and it certainly had the look of that genus, but the somewhat blurred dorsal shots, made it difficult to be sure just what we were looking at. The most distinctive external characters of O. rhinorma are the enormously large rhinophores. What looked like the lateral processes, or papillae, of a species of Thecacera, are clearly the out-sized rhinophores of O. rhinorma. Although it's taken 5 years, it's nice to be able to remove another animal from the limbo of the 'unidentified pages'.

Best wishes
Bill Rudman

Rudman, W.B., 2008 (Oct 3) Okenia rhinorma from Lembeh, Indonesia. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/21930

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