Aplysiopsis elegans Deshayes, 1853

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 : 293-294

Aplysiopsis elegans Deshayes, 1853

( Figure 5 (f))

Material examined

Cova de l’infern ( Spain), 42°19 ʹ 2.75”N, 3°19 ʹ 12.74”E, 19 November 2017, 1.2 m depth, 5 spcs, adults and egg masses, L = 15–20 mm; Cala Maset caves, Sant Feliu de Guíxols ( Spain), 41°47 ʹ 10”N, 3°2 ʹ 44”E, 13 September 2019, 1.3 m depth, 1 spc., adult, L = 15 mm; Punta de la Mona, Andalucía ( Spain), 36°43 ʹ 12.9”N 3°43 ʹ 43.1”W, 19 September 2020, 3 m depth, 1 spc., adult and egg masses, L = 20 mm.

External morphology

Body elongate, narrow, background colour white with longitudinal dark red lines on dorsum and lateral body parts. Cerata long, smooth; background colour green with white punctuation, dark red vertical lines, pink on tips.

Ecology

Specimens were found feeding on the green alga Cladophora prolifera (Roth) Kützing, 1843 . The egg mass is whitish, cylindrical, found associated with algae. The specimen observed in 2019 was found at night crawling over algae, while the 2017 specimens were hidden inside algae. This could mean that slugs are mostly nocturnal, hiding among algae during the day.

Distribution

Greece ( OBIS 2021); Croatia ( Mavrič et al. 2014); Spain: Canary Islands ( Ortea et al. 1998, 2001), Balearic Islands ( Ballesteros and Templado 1996), Catalonia (this study).

Remarks

This species is rarely observed. It is found among algae, especially Cystoseira , Cladophora and Halopteris scoparia (Linnaeus) Sauvageau, 1904 ( Mavrič et al. 2014), and probably feeds on them.

Figures

Figure 5. Photographs of live Pteropoda species: (a) Creseis virgula. (b) Hyalocylis striata. (c) Peracle reticulata. (d) Pneumodermopsis canephora. Runcinida: (e) Runcina ornata. Sacoglossa: (f) Aplysiopsis elegans. (g) Caliphylla mediterránea. (h) Cyerce graeca.