Juvenile Sea Hare?

[Peter T]

Hi guys,

I caught this guy in my tank last night when the lights were off. I think it looks like a juvenile sea hare but I can't tell for certain. It has the "ears" of a sea hare and has the color of brown diatom algae. The only thing that throws me off from the ID is that the body is too "oval" shaped and symmetrical compared to the sea hares that I have seen. Here are some pics and sorry for quality, its hard to get a pic of something that small. My camera wont even focus on it so I had to use my laptop camera. Thanks for any help!





edit: I removed the pics because they were so horrible I couldn't even tell what they were. Will repost pic when I can get better shot.

 

[Peter T]

Okay, here are the pictures of this slug thing. I lost it since the incident (forgot it was in my water test beaker and poured it back) but it has grown considerably and no longer looks the same. It is more bright green now and has a hump in the body. It no longer even remotely resembles a sea hare. If anything, I wouldn't be surprised that this is another hitchhiker.

Anyways can anyone ID it?

 

[Elysia]

My guess is that it is similar to a sea hare in a few ways (although the slug likely isn't in that order); my "remember-er" isn't working all that great today and the photo is at a distant, but it is likely a Sac. sea slug (and therefore a herbivore) that has retained its internal shell. Let me actually look up a species name.

The genus I am thinking of is Oxynoe. And thankfully, it is a Sacoglossan (so my brain isn't total mush yet.)

 

[Peter T]

It definitely looks like it is in the oxynoe genus. Makes sense now that I think about it; I added some caulerpa a few months back and it probably came on as a hitchhiker. Guess I found a sea slug without having to buy one.

Thanks alot for the ID It will be interesting to see how big it gets throughout the next few months.