Tritonia wellsi

Tritonia wellsi
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Mollusca
Class:	Gastropoda
Order:	Nudibranchia
Superfamily:	Tritonioidea
Family:	Tritoniidae
Genus:	Tritonia
Species:	T. wellsi
Binomial name
	Tritonia wellsi; Er. Marcus, 1961[1]

Tritonia wellsi, the sea whip slug, is a species of nudibranch, a shell-less marine gastropod mollusc in the family Tritoniidae. The type locality is Beaufort, North Carolina.[2]

Description

Tritonia wellsi is white and grows to about 1.5 centimetres (0.6 in) long. The head bears a pair of rhinophores (sensory organs) each with a sheath at its base. There are also six tentacles on the head in a transverse line. The body has two longitudinal rows of arborescent (tree-like) gills which resemble the polyps of the whip corals on which it lives and feeds. It is adapted for life on the coral, Leptogorgia virgulata, and is found nowhere else. It closely resembles the related species, Tritonia bayeri, which has much the same range.[3]

Distribution

Tritonia wellsi is found wherever its host occurs, on the western fringes of the Atlantic Ocean, from North Carolina and Florida south to Belize, Honduras, Costa Rica, the Virgin Islands and Brazil.[2]

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References

Tritonia wellsi - Er. Marcus, 1961 World Register of Marine Species. Retrieved 2011-12-10.
Tritonia wellsi - Er. Marcus, 1961 Malacolog: A Database of Western Atlantic Marine Mollusca. Retrieved 2011-12-10.
Ruppert, Edward E.; Richard S. Fox. Seashore animals of the Southeast: a guide to common shallow-water invertebrates of the Southeastern Atlantic Coast. p. 124. Retrieved 2011-12-10.

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[1] Tritonia wellsi - Er. Marcus, 1961 World Register of Marine Species. Retrieved 2011-12-10.

[Malacolog-2] Tritonia wellsi - Er. Marcus, 1961 Malacolog: A Database of Western Atlantic Marine Mollusca. Retrieved 2011-12-10.

[3] Ruppert, Edward E.; Richard S. Fox. Seashore animals of the Southeast: a guide to common shallow-water invertebrates of the Southeastern Atlantic Coast. p. 124. Retrieved 2011-12-10.