anudibranchmom's Journal

I usually confine myself to E. Pacific nudibranch news, but I thought enough underwater photographers might be interested in this taxonomic revision, published yesterday. Who doesn't love these huge, bright, squishy dorids?

Tibiriçá, Y., Pola, M., Pittman, C. et al. A Spanish dancer? No! A troupe of dancers: a review of the family Hexabranchidae Bergh, 1891 (Gastropoda, Heterobranchia, Nudibranchia). Org Divers Evol (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13127-023-00611-0

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13127-023-00611-0

Thank you Sonja @squishlefish for the find with Laura @thetidepooler of Refemsia macfarlandi, a very small, rare species of heterobranch today. 😊 A bit of a weirdo, it is the only species in the genus. It was first described in 1991 by @tgosliner and according to Behrens, et al, 2022, it ranges from Lincoln County, Oregon to Long Beach, California. However, today’s observation is from La Jolla, California! @jeffgoddard and @lutea11 check this out. Possibly more evidence of Eastern Pacific species moving southward (La Niña!?) this year?

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/166678396
and
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/166688840

Congratulations on a very interesting find!!

Thank you @jeffgoddard for pointing out that WoRMS has accepted Ancula pacifica:

"I just noticed that WoRMS now accepts Ancula pacifica, following Behrens et al. (2022), who I know considered morphological and molecular genetic evidence, including Ian Smith's extensive account of A. gibbosa: https://www.flickr.com/photos/56388191@N08/51782089511. Ancula pacifica MacFarland, 1905 applies only to Ancula in the NE Pacific with three orange lines on the body between the rhinophores and gills, so this change on iNaturalist will not apply to all observations from the region currently referred to as A. gibbosa. Ancula pacifica usually ranges north to northern California, but in warm water years can be found as far north as Oregon and Washington, where it overlaps in distribution with A. gibbosa."

You may want to take a look at your Ancula observations to make sure they're IDd correctly, but there's a good chance Jeff and others already tidied up the names for you.

Softcover edition of Behrens et al, Nudibranchs and Sea Slugs of the Eastern Pacific, 2022 is available now at MolaMarine.com or Amazon.
Link: https://www.molamarine.com/

You don't have to do anything! I changed it automatically for you based on range. ;-)

Catriona spadix is now its own species; it was most recently called the southern form of Catriona columbiana. A reproduction of the lovely 1905 color illustration by Olive MacFarland (finally published 61 years later, in 1966) of 'Cratena spadix' appears on the acknowledgments page of Behrens et al, "Nudibranchs and Sea Slugs of the Eastern Pacific," 2022. Photographs of both species are on page 146.

To quote Dave Behrens in a 2002 SlugSite post: "C. columbiana has had a bouncy taxonomic past."

Mercifully, it's relatively easy to distinguish these two species, both by appearance and range. Catriona spadix has red-orange oral tentacles, whereas Catriona columbiana has white oral tentacles. (Both have red-orange rhinophores.) Range also helps, although they may overlap in Oregon. Catriona columbiana occurs from the Sea of Japan to Alaska to Cape Arago, Oregon, and Catriona spadix occurs from Cape Arago, Oregon to San Diego, California.

Here's a link to the paper: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/eva.13468

Pacific Northwest nudibranch observers: Two new name changes, but you don't have to do anything.

1) Predaceous Aeolis (Himatina trophina) has a new genus name once again. The current name is now Coryphella trophina. I have retained the old common name (Predaceous Aeolis) for clarity.

2) Coryphella pseudoverrucosa is no longer a separate species. It is now considered a junior subjective synonym of Coryphella verrucosa (Red-fingered Aeolis).

In both cases, you do not have to go back and rename your Observations, it happened automatically when I did the taxon swaps.

Citation: Ekimova, I.; Valdés, Á.; Malaquias, M. A. E.; Rauch, C.; Chichvarkhin, A.; Mikhlina, A.; Antokhina, T.; Chichvarkhina, O.; Schepetov, D. (2022). High-level taxonomic splitting in allopatric taxa causes confusion downstream: a revision of the nudibranch family Сoryphellidae. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. , available online at https://doi.org/10.1093/zoolinnean/zlab109

End-of-Year Cleanup Time. 'Tis the annual season to find out how badly you have been misidentifying things. I just Marie Condo'd my identifications, and despite the repeated eyerolling at my own goofs ("How did I identify it as THAT?"), I feel much better that at least they're now corrected.

Want to do your own ID cleanse? Paste in the following, then cut and substitute anudibranchmom for your own user name:

https://www.inaturalist.org/identifications?user_id=anudibranchmom&category=maverick

Now won't you feel better?

;-)

Jeff Goddard's paper, and a nice article from UCSB, came out yesterday. Congratulations Jeff!

What to look for: Cymatioa cooki is a beautiful little clam with a long, white-striped foot. It was first seen in November 2018, and the other specimens were also found Nov-Mar, so winter might be a good time to spot more of these beauties.

The easy read: https://www.news.ucsb.edu/2022/020757/needle-coastal-haystack

Jeff's paper: zookeys.pensoft.net/article/95139/list/9/

I was honored to be tidepooling with Jeff on the day he found the first one, and got a bit of video that shows it's odd, vigorous way of moving. The audio also captures our puzzlement and the fact that I may have seen another one earlier that day, but was too busy hunting for nudibranchs to realize what I'd seen! Classic me.
:-O https://www.flickr.com/photos/30314434@N06/31128212317/in/photostream/

I am synonymizing all Eastern Pacific nudibranch English common names with the new edition: Behrens et al, "Nudibranchs and Sea Slugs of the Eastern Pacific," 2022. This means that some of your old faves (Hermissenda crassicornis, Abronia abronica, Acanthodoris lutea, etc) will have slightly different, possibly new-to-you primary common names. Yes, your old favorite names are still retained. Ah, change...

After eight years in the genus Sclerodoris, this unusual sponge-mimicking dorid has gone back to its earlier genus name. Welcome back, Doris tanya.

https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/1406713-Doris-tanya

https://www.molluscabase.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=581806

It's been 17 years since the last edition, and the new "Nudibranch Bible" for the West Coast of the US, Canada and Mexico is terrific!

Softcover is available now at MolaMarine.com or Amazon.
Link: https://www.molamarine.com/

Description: This complete and colorful guide covers all of the 370+ species of shallow-water sea slugs known to occur from Alaska to Central America. In addition to size, range, and habitat descriptions, it also provides information on color variations, eggs, and convenient tips on how to distinguish them from similar species. Richly illustrated with color photos contributed by over 50 of the best "nudie" photographers on the west coast, it is an essential refererence for divers, beachcombers, underwater photographers, and anyone else with an interest in this fascinating group.

Enjoy!