Aegires sublaevis

Aegires sublaevis  Odhner, 1932

Aegires sublaevis by Nani Díez Bosch

Description
Small dorid nudibranch with a maximum recorded length of 12 mm. The body is tough and rigid. The base colour of the body is white to yellowish, translucent. There are some brownish grey patches, each edged by a ring of the opaque background coloration more apparent in mature specimens. There is a low dorsal ridge that widens to the back of the body, forming a triple gill cover, and splitting to the front of the body besides the rhinophoral sheaths. The Atlantic specimens have a distinct lateral ridge or mantle edge on each side of the body. There are few stalked dorsal tubercules typical of other Aegires species, but there are some rounded bumps scattered over the dorsum. It has no cerata. There are two white smooth rhinophores. Specimens from the Atlantic and Mediterranean have one ring of dark pigment on the rhinophores whereas those from the Galápagos have two dark rings. There is a bilobed oral veil in the anterior part of the body, however there are no propodial nor oral tentacles. The foot is not colored nor has any appendages.

Biology
It is reported to feed on the sponge Clathrina coriacea (Ros, 1977 – Canary Islands) and Clathrina sp. (Thompson, 1981 – Bermuda) where its colour pattern, specifically the dark patches distributed throughout the body, match that of the sponge. This species is easy to distinguish from related species by its colouration and shape. It is considered uncommon.

Etymology

• Aegires. From “Aegir”, god of the Sea in norse mythology.
• Sublaevis. From latin “sub”, under, not quite + “laevis”, smooth. Not quite smooth.

Distribution
This species has been reported from the Mediterranean Sea (Schmekel and Portmann, 1982), the Canary Islands (Odhner 1932; Altimira and Ros 1979; Pérez Sánchez, Bacallado and Ortega 1991; Ortea et al. 1996), Panama (Meyer, 1977), Bermuda (Thompson 1981) and Guadalupe (Ortea et al. 2012). There is another report from the Galápagos Islands (Fahey & Gosliner, 2004) which represents the first record of this species from the Pacific, identical in every aspect to the Atlantic specimens but for a second rhinophoral ring.

Videos

Aegires sublaevis @ La Herradura, Granada by Fernando Aguado

More pictures

Bibliography

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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

• Biodiversity Heritage Library
• Flickr pictures
• Interim Register of Marine and Nonmarine Genera
• NCBI GenBank
• OBIS - Search by Taxon
• SeaSlug Forum
• World Register of Marine Species

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