Ancula pacifica

Ancula pacifica is a species of sea slugs, a dorid nudibranch, a marine gastropod mollusc in the family Goniodorididae.

Ancula pacifica
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Mollusca
Class:
Gastropoda
(unranked):
clade Heterobranchia
clade Euthyneura
clade Nudipleura
clade Nudibranchia
clade Euctenidiacea
clade Doridacea
Superfamily:
Onchidoridoidea
Family:
Goniodorididae
Genus:
Ancula
Species:
A. pacifica
Binomial name
Ancula pacifica
Synonyms

? Ancula gibbosa Risso, 1818

Distribution

This species was first described from Monterey Bay, California.

Description

This goniodorid nudibranch is translucent white in color with orange lines on the body. There is a mid dorsal line and lines along the pallial margin which may be continuous or interrupted. The pre-rhinophoral papillae and gills are tipped with orange and there is a line of orange pigment along the ridge of the tail. There are 4-14 club-shaped extra-branchial papillae which are translucent white with orange or yellow tips. Small papillae with orange tips typically occur between larger papillae with pale yellow tips.[2] Individuals without the lines on the body occur in some populations. Although currently considered to be a synonym of the European species Ancula gibbosa there are significant differences in color and shape of the extra-branchial papillae and this is probably a distinct species.

Ecology

Ancula pacifica probably feeds on Entoprocta which often grow on hydroids, bryozoa and other living substrata.

gollark: Particularly the noncentral fallacy.
gollark: It's basically entirely appeal to emotion, vague word association and stacks upon stacks of fallacies.
gollark: It's also very hard to empirically test anything in politics, not that people want to anyway.
gollark: The world is annoyingly complicated, so trying to start from a set of known premises and use formal logic to get results isn't very workable, plus there's Hume's guillotine.
gollark: <@772143922679644231> Nothing in politics is ever very "logical".

References
  1. MacFarland, Frank Mace. 1905. A Preliminary Account of the Dorididae of Monterey Bay, California. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. 18:35-54.
  2. Rudman, W.B., 2000 (March 24) Ancula gibbosa (Risso, 1818). [In] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.