Biuve fulvipunctata

Biuve fulvipunctata (Baba, 1938)

Biuve fulvipunctata 1cm @ S'Algar, Menorca (5 m.) 21-08-2015 by Enric Madrenas

Taxonomy

	Superdomain	Biota
	Kingdom	Animalia
	Phylum	Mollusca
	Class	Gastropoda
	Subclass	Heterobranchia
	Infraclass	Euthyneura
	Subterclass	Tectipleura
	Order	Cephalaspidea
	Superfamily	Philinoidea
	Family	Aglajidae
	Genus	Biuve
	Species	Biuve fulvipunctata (Baba, 1938)

	Classification according to Bouchet et al. (2017) Taxonomic source: World Register of Marine Species (AphiaID: 1055233).

Synonyms

Chelidonura conformata Burn, 1966
Chelidonura mediterranea Swennen, 1961
Chelidonura fulvipunctata Baba, 1938

Description
A somewhat cylindrical and elongated body, with an internal and membranous shell, divided into a head shield and a visceral hump on the rear end, partially covered by the mantle. The head shield has a wider and roughly bilobed front edge, and covers the first two thirds of the total body length. It can reach a maximum length of 33 mm (Sammut & Perrone, 1998) but the usual size is between 10 and 20mm. The color pattern can be very variable: some specimens are velvety black or dark brown with bluish reflections, dotted with spots of golden white or orange, while other specimens are rust-like brown with fine yellow dots. In any case, all of them have a “W” mark on the leading edge of the head as well as a white or cream colored spot at the rear end of the head shield, and also have five orange points in the front of the head. A number of sensory bristles located on the front of the head, densest on two prominences to the sides of the mouth, allow it to detect their preys. Two round black eyes can be clearly visible, or not, on the leading edge of the head, between the two cephalic lobes. The foot expands laterally and symmetrically in two long arch shaped parapodia, and with a color similar to the body, without white pigmentation, and partially covering the back of the animal. The base of the foot also has a similar color. The mantle has a thin white line on the posterior margin, with a long flagellum on the left side and a short one on the right side.

Biology
According to Marshall & Willan (1999) it prefers sandy areas with accumulations of algal debris from the low tide level down to depths of 20m. With nocturnal habits, is is found in protected areas as well as in exposed areas. In the Mediterranean it is rarely found, usually in rocky habitats with algal populations down to 12m deep. It probably feeds on polychaete or small acelomate flatworms it is supposed to absorb very quickly. The spawn is a cord forming small sized irregular clusters. The sticky cover of the eggs can capture detritus from the environment for reinforcement and camouflage. Hatching occurs after four days (under laboratory conditions).

Etymology

Biuve, because of the presence of a “W” shaped mark on the head region. From Latin “bi”, two and “uve” Spanish for letter “v”.
Fulvipunctata. From Latin word “Fulvi”, yellow haired or blonde, also tawny, from brownish-orange to light brown color + “Punctata”, from French “ponctuée”, from Latin “punctatus”, dotted, with dots or spots. Yellow dotted.

Distribution
Widely distributed in the Indo-Pacific, as it is present in Japan, Hawaii, the Philippines, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand, French Polynesia, Marshall Islands, Reunion, Vanuatu, Mexico, South Africa and Mozambique. It is also present in the Mediterranean, where there are very few confirmed reports: Selimiye port, Antalya, Turkey as Chelidonura mediterranea (Swennen, 1961), Israel (Mienis and Gat, 1987), Malta (Perrone and Sammut, 1997), Cyprus ( Tsiakkiros and Zenetos, 2011), Italy (2015), France (Horst, 2015) and Menorca, Balearic Islands, Spain (Karachle et al., 2016), all as Chelidonura fulvipunctata. This wide geographical dispersion, together with the high chromatic patterns diversity, suggests that we are talking of different species within the same genus, although further molecular studies are needed to certify this hypothesis.

Known georeferenced records of the species: Biuve fulvipunctata
Sources:
: OBIS : GROC 2010-2011 : Enric Madrenas : João Pedro Silva : Bernard Picton : GBIF.ORG	: OPK : VIMAR : Manuel Ballesteros. : M@re Nostrum : Altres fonts : Marine Regions

Abundance

Western Mediterranean:
Eastern Mediterranean:
Atlantic Ocean:

Month

This chart displays the monthly observation probability for Biuve fulvipunctata based on our own records.

More pictures

Bibliography

Bibliography based on the works by Steve Long, 2006. Bibliography of Opisthobranchia 1554-2000 and Gary McDonald, 2009. Bibliographia Nudibranchia, with later updates from other resources.

Further reading

Cite this article as:

Pontes, Miquel, Manuel Ballesteros, Enric Madrenas (2021) "Biuve fulvipunctata" in OPK-Opistobranquis. Published: 11/09/2014. Accessed: 17/05/2021. Available at (https://opistobranquis.info/en/fGNVk)

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Biuve fulvipunctata