{"id":14401,"date":"2014-09-14T22:03:18","date_gmt":"2014-09-14T20:03:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/opistobranquis.info\/?page_id=14401"},"modified":"2022-10-09T18:05:14","modified_gmt":"2022-10-09T16:05:14","slug":"cyerce-graeca","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/opistobranquis.info\/en\/guia\/sacoglossa\/plakobranchoidea\/cyerce-graeca\/","title":{"rendered":"Cyerce graeca"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Cyerce graeca<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0Thompson, 1988<\/h3>\n

\"Cyerce<\/div>
Cyerce graeca @ Punta del Roman\u00ed, L'Escala, Spain 6-02-2016<\/em> by Enric Madrenas<\/center><\/span>

<\/p>

WoRMS Taxonomic Information<\/h3>
Current accepted name: Cyerce graeca<\/em> T. E. Thompson, 1988<\/strong><\/div>

Current classification<\/h4>
Superdomain<\/th>Biota<\/a><\/td><\/tr>
Kingdom<\/th>Animalia<\/a><\/td><\/tr>
Phylum<\/th>Mollusca<\/a><\/td><\/tr>
Class<\/th>Gastropoda<\/a><\/td><\/tr>
Subclass<\/th>Heterobranchia<\/a><\/td><\/tr>
Infraclass<\/th>Euthyneura<\/a><\/td><\/tr>
Subterclass<\/th>Tectipleura<\/a><\/td><\/tr>
Superorder<\/th>Sacoglossa<\/a><\/td><\/tr>
Superfamily<\/th>Plakobranchoidea<\/a><\/td><\/tr>
Family<\/th>Caliphyllidae<\/a><\/td><\/tr>
Genus<\/th>Cyerce<\/em><\/a><\/td><\/tr>
Species<\/th>Cyerce graeca<\/em> T. E. Thompson, 1988<\/a><\/td><\/tr><\/table>

Classification provided by the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS). [140091<\/a>]<\/p><\/div>Description
\n<\/strong>The body is translucent white, colored by a characteristic dark brown pattern which essentially covers the entire dorsum, except the area around the eyes, head, pericardial area, the area\u00a0ahead of\u00a0the rhinophores and their tips, but the transparency of the rest of the body often gives\u00a0the animal an\u00a0uniformly colored look. The cerata are very wide and somewhat inflated, very mobile and easily autotomized if the animal is disturbed, leaving behind these organs that change shape for\u00a0hours to distract the attention of\u00a0predators. The animal quickly regenerates the lost cerata. Both the dorsal and ventral surfaces of the cerata are translucent white, except for a row of blunt brown digitations at the edges of the cerata that in some specimens\u00a0appear as a brown line along the edge of each cerata, missing in the smaller cerata on the front of the animal. Small white scores were also observed forming a band at the tips\u00a0of the cerata, corresponding to opalescent glands, most likely of defensive character. The digestive tract is dark green or almost black brown and can be seen by transparency in different parts of the body, both dorsal and ventral. All head tentacles are wound, the rhinophores bifurcated (characteristic of this family), of which the top one is colored brown but the lower one and oral tentacles are light colored. The previous propodial margin is bilabiate, and the foot has a transversal\u00a0mesopodial slit. The anus\u00a0is located latero-dorsally on the right side, visible as a light colored papilla, located right ahead of\u00a0the pericardial prominence. The largest specimen Thompson found measured 11 mm in length.<\/p>\n

This species bears some resemblance to the little studied Cyerce antillensis<\/em> Engel, 1927, first described in Tobago, in the Caribbean, and later found in Cura\u00e7ao and in Florida by Marcus & Marcus (1967, Plate 1) under the name Cyerce cristallina<\/em>, Jamaica by Thompson (1977) and Bermuda by Clark (1984) and Jensen & Clark (1986). The shape of the radular teeth is similar, but there are important differences in the body color pattern in living specimens, which have wavy and soft pale brown limbs in Cyerce antillensis<\/em>, compared with dark brown digitate ceratal limbs of Cyerce graeca<\/em>. Marcus & Marcus (1970) attempted to set objective anatomical criteria to distinguish the two species from the Caribbean, especially stressing the importance of examining the pharynx, specifically a laminate muscular organ attached to the back of the buccal mass of the animal. This had a\u00a0bulbous shape in Cyerce graeca<\/em>, more like that of Cyerce antillensis<\/em>\u00a0than the illustrated by the same authors of\u00a0Cyerce cristallina<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Biology
\n<\/strong>Like all sacoglossans, this species feeds on algae. Specimens have been found on Flabellia petiolata<\/em> (Thompson, 1988) and other hard substrate algal growths (Petrusek, 2003) and (Atero, 2015) and also under stones (Pontes, 2016). This species is a extremely rare observation because of its excellent cryptic capabilities, blending it with the surrounding environment. It has been found from the surface down to 30 meters of depth.<\/p>\n

Etymology<\/strong><\/p>\n