Aplysia juliana Quoy and Gaimard, 1832

Description

Marcus (1955).

Distribution

Circumtropical; eastern and western Atlantic (Marcus 1955) as well as the Indian and Pacific Oceans (Kay 1964), in shallow marine habitats. In Chile this species has been recorded in Iquique (20°11 ʹ S, 70°08 ʹ W), Antofagasta (23°38 ʹ S, 70°24 ʹ W) and Taltal (25°24 ʹ S, 70°29 ʹ W) (Castilla et al. 2005). This species was found for the first time in Antofagasta in 1982 (Tomicic 1985), associated with ENSO events.

Possible mechanism of introduction/Status

Associated with ENSO events/unestablished (Castilla et al. 2005).

Remarks

This is a large herbivorous marine slug, feeding almost exclusively on the alga Ulva lactuca (Frings and Frings 1965) . UA, SA.