Dondice occidentalis

Dondice occidentalis is a species of sea slug, an aeolid nudibranch, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Facelinidae.[1]

Dondice occidentalis
A live individual of Dondice occidentalis
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Mollusca
Class:
Gastropoda
(unranked):
clade Heterobranchia
clade Euthyneura
clade Nudipleura
clade Nudibranchia
clade Dexiarchia
clade Cladobranchia
clade Aeolidida
Superfamily:
Aeolidioidea
Family:
Facelinidae
Subfamily:
Favorininae
Genus:
Dondice
Species:
D. occidentalis
Binomial name
Dondice occidentalis
Engel, 1925

Taxonomy

According to Gonzalez et al. (2013),[2] Dondice occidentalis and Dondice parguerensis probably represent an example of incipient sympatric speciation.[3] Molecular analyses support partially the differentiation of these species, but were inconclusive, being based only on two genes which are less variable than the COI barcoding gene normally used to distinguish closely related species.[3] Further research is needed in order to resolve this, but COI sequences on GenBank suggest that there could be three species within this species complex.[4]

Distribution

Distribution of Dondice occidentalis includes Florida, Mexico, Belize, Costa Rica, Colombia, Venezuela, Curaçao, Bonaire, Venezuela, Bermudas, Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Jamaica, Turks and Caicos, Grenada, Sint Maarten, Martinique, Trinidad, Brazil and Panama.[3]

Description
Dorsal view of Dondice occidentalis.

The body is elongate, tapering toward the posterior end. Rhinophores are annulate and long. Oral tentacles are longer than the rhinophores. Cerata are arranged in clusters along two rows on the dorsum. Background color is translucent gray with a yellow or orange median line of variable width, running from the head to the anterior end, between the rhinophores. There is sometimes present a white or blue broken line down the dorsal mid-line from behind the rhinophores to the posterior end of the body. Opaque white spots are sometimes present on the dorsum. Oral tentacles are translucent or light blue at the base, becoming white towards the tips. Cerata are translucent gray, often with large blue or white bands covering the upper two-thirds of each ceras. The maximum recorded body length is 50 mm.[3]

Habitat

Recorded at depths from the surface to 26 metres.[5] This species was found on hydroids in Panama feeding on hydroids of the genus Eudendrium and apparently the bryozoan Amathia.[3] It easily sheds the cerata when it is disturbed.[3]

References

This article incorporates Creative Commons (CC-BY-4.0) text from the reference[3]

  1. Gofas S. (2005). Dondice occidentalis Engel, 1925. In: MolluscaBase (2016). Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=181246 on 2016-10-26
  2. Gonzalez L., Hanson D. & Valdés Á. (2013). "Molecular divergence between two sympatric species of Dondice (Mollusca: Nudibranchia) with distinct feeding specializations". Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 93(7): 1887-1893. doi:10.1017/S0025315413000465.
  3. Goodheart J. A., Ellingson R. A., Vital X. G., Galvão Filho H. C., McCarthy J. B., Medrano S. M., Bhave V. J., García-Méndez K., Jiménez L. M., López G. & Hoover C. A. (2016). "Identification guide to the heterobranch sea slugs (Mollusca: Gastropoda) from Bocas del Toro, Panama". Marine Biodiversity Records 9(1): 56. doi:10.1186/s41200-016-0048-z
  4. Goodheart, J.A., Bazinet, A.L., Valdes, A., Collins, A.G. and Cummings, M.P. 2017. Prey preference follows phylogeny: evolutionary dietary patterns within the marine gastropod group Cladobranchia (Gastropoda:Heterobranchia: Nudibranchia). BMC Evolutionary Biology 17 (1), 221 (2017)
  5. Welch J. J. (2010). "The “Island Rule” and Deep-Sea Gastropods: Re-Examining the Evidence". PLoS ONE 5(1): e8776. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0008776.
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