Re: Berthella or Berthellina

October 11, 2002
From: Lucas Cervera

Dear Bill,
Concerning the photo from Michel Barrabes, the first thing would be to decide if this animal is Berthellina or Berthella. I think it is is a juvenile of a yellowish form of Berthellina edwardsi, since I assume that the dark shadow on the back is the digestive gland and not a shell. The shell color in Berthella is white/whitish or amber, not brown, and it covers a big percentange of the whole visceral mass.

Nevertheless, if I'm wrong, it should be Berthella plumula, not B. aurantiaca. In my view, most of the records of mediterranean "B. aurantiaca" during the last 50 years probably belongs to Berthellina edwardsi, that is much more common. Unfortunately, "B. aurantiaca" records are included basically in faunistic or ecological papers, that did not present any anatomical information. For this reason, my view could be considerd "very putative", but all the Mediterranean specimens that I have examined, that were labeled as Berthella auratiaca", were Berthellina.

In respect to the "papillae", they are not papillae, but the mantle acid glands that are more or less bottle-shaped. They are not difficult to see in Berthellina edwardsi or Berthella plumula or B. stellata. When the specimens are well preserved, they are very easy to see also in other species of the same genera. I cannot tell any more. As usual, the last word should be given by the dissection of the animal, but this is impossible in this case, obviously.

All the best.
Lucas.

lucas.cervera@uca.es

Cervera, J.L., 2002 (Oct 11) Re: Berthella or Berthellina. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/8145

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