OKINAWAN
OPISTHOBRANCH OF THE WEEK

Opisthobranch of the Week Data

Taxonomy:

        Sclerodoris tuberculata is considered to be very rare in Okinawan waters; I've not seen the animal here on Okinawa's main island and Atsushi Ono mentions (per. comm.) having seen only the above featured single animal from the Keramas*. This 35mm animal was collected by Atsushi during June of 2001 from a sandy bottom off Amuro Island.

        Rudman (1978) points out some of the taxonomic problems encountered with a series of synonymies of the species and has selected Sclerodoris tuberculata to be the type species for Sclerodoris.

        Dave Behrens (1999), has a description of the species on Mike Miller's Slug Site as well as Mike featuring a great photo of the animal from Batangas, Philippines, by Jeff Rosenfeld. This photo by Jeff shows quite nicely the dorsal midline pit, which mimics the osculum of a sponge. This dorsal midline pit is one of the consistent characters (Rudman, 2002) seen in this variably colored dorid.

Literature Cited:

        * Keramas = the Kerama Islands Group, located 30 ~ 40 kilometers west of the Okinawa capitol, Naha.