Prostheceraeus moseleyi Lang, 1884

Gammoudi, Mehrez, Garbouj, Myriam, Egger, Bernhard & Tekaya, Saïda, 2017, Updated inventory and distribution of free-living flatworms from Tunisian waters, Zootaxa 4263 (1), pp. 120-138 : 127

Prostheceraeus moseleyi Lang, 1884

( Fig. 2 j)

Habitat. 20 specimens were collected from mussel beds in Bizerta lagoon.

Locality. Bizerta lagoon (37° 13' 19.29" N; 9° 55' 49.94" E).

Localities in Tunisia from bibliography. Bizerta lagoon (Gammoudi et al. 2011; Gammoudi & Tekaya 2012).

Other localities in the world. Gulf of Naples ( Lang 1884); Catalonian coasts ( Novell 2001). This species with a previous distribution restricted to Mediterranean coasts was recently reported for the first time from the Atlantic ocean by Noreña et al. (2014).

Remark. In our study, P. moseleyi was found to feed on the ascidian Styela plicata (Lesueur, 1823) . Noreña et al. (2014) noticed that atlantic specimens feed mainly on Clavelina lepadiformis ( Müller, 1776) .

Figures

FIGURE 2. Polyclads from Tunisian waters. Dorsal view in all panels, anterior to the left. a Leptoplana mediterranea. b Leptoplana tremellaris. c Echinoplana celerrima. d Theama mediterranea; the depicted specimen was collected in Calvi, Corse. e Imogine mediterranea. f Discocelis tigrina. g Cestoplana rubrocinta. h Comoplana agilis. i Prosthiostomum siphunculus. j Prostheceraeus moseleyi. k Thysanozoon brocchii. l Pseudoceros maximus. m Yungia aurantiaca n hatching in Leptoplana tremellaris. o hatched four-eyed juvenile of Leptoplana tremellaris. Scale bars: 2 a – c, 2 e – m: 5 mm; 2 d, 2 n – o: 100 microns.