Sea Slug

[elderfo]

Can anyone help me identify my new little friend who came along with some life rock?

 

[pagojoe]

It's an Elysia species for sure, one of the solar-powered sacoglossans. It won't hurt anything in your tank, but the other animals may kill it. You can scroll through the species of Elysia here:

http://www.seaslugforum.net/specieslist.cfm

and see if you see it. I'm on dialup at the moment, so it might be next month if I tried to track it down for you

Leslie may recognize it at a glance, though.

Cheers,



Don

 

[elderfo]

Don, wasn't able to find anything i could settle on as an identification.

 

[pagojoe]

Well, I'm certainly no sacoglossan expert, and if it's from anywhere other than the Indo-Pacific, I wouldn't have a chance of recognizing it, but...it's fairly similar to one of the slugs I collected in Samoa. Bill Rudman believes it is a variation of Elysia rufescens:

http://www.seaslugforum.net/display.cfm?id=4822

Yours has a few obvious, if not glaring, differences, including what appears to be a white border on the parapodia. It still might be a variation of this species, though.

Cheers,



Don