Aegires palensis Ortea, Luque and Templado, 1990

Salvador, Xavier, Fernández-Vilert, Robert & Moles, Juan, 2022, Sea slug night fever: 39 new records of elusive heterobranchs in the western Mediterranean (Mollusca: Gastropoda), Journal of Natural History 56 (5 - 8), pp. 265-310 : 271-272

Aegires palensis Ortea, Luque and Templado, 1990

( Figure 2 (e))

Material examined

Cala Ventosa , Sant Feliu de Guíxols ( Spain), 41°47 ʹ 5”N, 3°2 ʹ 52”E, 13 September 2017, 1 m depth, 1 spc., adult, L = 10 mm; Cala Maset caves, Sant Feliu de Guíxols ( Spain), 41° 47 ʹ 10”N, 3°2 ʹ 44”E, 7 May 2018, 1 m depth, 7 spcs, juveniles and adults, L = 3–15 mm; Cala d’Aiguafreda, Begur ( Spain), 41°57 ʹ 49”N, 3°13 ʹ 41”E, 25 May 2018, 1 m depth, 6 spcs, juveniles and adults, L = 6–15 mm .

External morphology

Body elongate, rough, angulated, with tubercles in the laterals; body colour beige, with small white and light brown dots; rhinophores, rhinophoral sheaths and apical part of tubercles with dark brown spots. Branchial leaves protected by three tubercles, curved internally, equal in length.

Ecology

All specimens were found on top of white calcareous sponges of the genus Sycon Risso, 1817 (pss. S. elegans (Bowerbank, 1845) and S. raphanus Schmidt, 1862 ) and Ascandra contorta (Bowerbank, 1866) . Generally found at night at the entrance to or inside caves, crawling on walls.

Distribution

Sardinia, Italy ( Trainito and Doneddu 2015); Mediterranean Spanish coast: Andalucía and Levantine coast ( Cervera et al. 2004), Catalonia ( Cervera et al. 2004; Ballesteros et al. 2012–2021; this study).

Remarks

This species can be differentiated from the other Atlantic species of Aegires by the shape and disposition of the tubercles around the gills and the dorsum, by the body colour, and by the dark brown dots in the sheaths and apex of the rhinophores ( Ortea et al. 1990).

Figures

Figure 2. Photographs of live Cephalaspidea species: (a) The alien Haloa japonica. (b) Haminoea orteai. (c) Egg mass of Haminoea orteai. (d) Philine catena. The Nudibranchia species: (e) Aegires palensis. (f) White morphotype of Aegires sublaevis. (g) Aldisa smaragdina on top of the sponge Phorbas topsenti. (h) Okenia longiductis on the bryozoan Amathia verticillata.