Hermaea paucicirra Pruvot-Fol, 1953

Salvador, Xavier, Fernández-Vilert, Robert & Moles, Juan, 2022, Sea slug night fever: 39 new records of elusive heterobranchs in the western Mediterranean (Mollusca: Gastropoda), Journal of Natural History 56 (5 - 8), pp. 265-310 : 298

Hermaea paucicirra Pruvot-Fol, 1953

( Figure 6 (c))

Material examined

Cala Maset caves, Sant Feliu de Guíxols ( Spain), 41°47 ʹ 10”N, 3°2 ʹ 44”E, 5 January 2018, 0.4 m depth, 3 spcs, adults and copulation, L = 2–3 mm .

External morphology

Body elongate, narrow, background colour translucent white, with red lines on dorsum from apex of rhinophores to tail, and on laterals from eyes; with white opaque dots scattered on dorsum. Cerata club-shaped, red in colour, with white punctuation more concentrated in apex. Rhinophores internally rolled, posterior part longer than anterior part, transparent white with opaque white dots.

Ecology

Specimens found feeding and mating on the red alga Antithamnion cruciatum (C.Agardh) Nägeli, 1847 and were active at night.

Distribution

The species description of this slug was from specimens in Atlantic waters of Morocco and Senegal ( Pruvot-Fol 1953); also found in Portugal ( Cervera et al. 2004); Gibraltar ( Cervera and García-Gómez 1986); Spain: Canary Islands, Andalucía, Galicia, Cantabric Sea, Levantine coast ( Cervera et al. 2004), Catalonia ( Ballesteros et al. 2016; this study).

Remarks

This species is distinguished from H. bifida by having more globular and rounded cerata, and more abundant white body punctuation ( Salvat 1968). Hermaea paucicirra can be differentiated from its sympatric species H. cantabra by the presence of a more opaque white body with a red mark on the eyes. Because the epidermal red pigmentation on the dorsum obscures the digestive gland as it also happens with the cerata, not as in H. cantabra ( Caballer and Ortea 2015) .

Family LIMAPONTIIDAE Gray, 1847

Genus Limapontia Johnston, 1836

Figures

Figure 6. Photographs of live Sacoglossa species: (a) Hermaea bifida and close-up on its egg mass at the base of an alga. (b) Hermaea cantabra. (c) Hermaea paucicirra. (d) Limapontia capitata on Ulva lactuca. (e) Placida tardyi. (f) Placida viridis. (g) Elysia flava. Siphonariidae: (h) Williamia gussoni.