Crosslandia daedali

Drawing by Orso Campillo

Crosslandia daedali Porter & Mulliner, 1981

The BOW of this week is being presented in a more classical way, as seen in the illustration above, the drawing is like the ones used in papers instead of photographs. This idea is based on the desire to depict the beauty of these animals using a pen drawing as again was done in the turn of the century before the advent of photography. Another member of the Crosslandia genus (Crosslandia viridis, Eliot 1903) can be seen on Bill Rudman's Sea Slug Forum.

The featured slug is Crosslandia daedali Porter & Mulliner, 1981. This slug was encountered in one of the field trips that were made during the CONABIO expeditions to the region of Bahía Tortugas-Punta Eugenia on the central coastline of the Baja California Peninsula.

On October 17- 1998, Hans Bertsch and I were planning a shore dive in the fishing camp of Punta Malarrimo. As we arrived to the site we saw that the tides were a little low and that the wind was strong, and after a little discusion on where we were going to dive, it was decided that the best way to enter the water was through the boat ramp of the fishing camp. So we both put on our dive gear and entered the water, the bottom was covered with quite large rocks and with brown algae. We were diving within close range of each other and then the silt begun to rise reducing the visibility to all most 3 feet, shorty thereafter Hans was lost from my view. But knowing we were in a safe place and also each off us were aware of the diving abilities of the other, we decided to continue our dive (off course we knew this when we both met again in the truck). I came out from the water first and took my dive gear off. Hans appeared 20 minutes later, with a big smile that was noticeable even with his regulator and mask on. Helping him with his gear, we talked about the separation and he asked me "what I had found." I told him some Navanax and Berthellas, and then I asked him what he found, and with a childhood smile, the answer me was " we shall see".

We returned to our camp in Bahía Tortugas, and took a beer out and we begun to discuss our findings, and he showed me a strange slug with green "wings", I was amazed and asked what it was, and he replied that he wasn't sure, maintaining the same facial expression. So Hans took some pictures of it and I made the drawing of the slug ( that I later used in my thesis). So we returned to San Diego and as soon we finished unloading the truck, Hans took one article from his library and then suddenly his eye glasses popped out and begun to run down the stairs to show me the slug. Both of us were amazed to see that the intriguing slug was Crosslandia daedali. We were also amazed to see that it was only known from the type locality (Bahía Bacochibampo, Tinajas and Punta Cuevas; Sonora)

We observed our finding to be the first record from outside the Gulf of California, in almost 20 years since the original description.

Photo of Hans Bertsch and myself at our temporary lab and base camp on the trips that we made to Bahia Tortugas. This improvised lab was the setting where Hans and I made our observations and also is were I made the drawing of Crosslandia daedali.

Orso Campillo Orso pictured sitting on some dunes at Bahia Magdalena, Mexico

Orso is currently currently working on his masters program, in which he plans to study the time variation of the nudibranch population in the area of La Paz, Baja California. The address of his school is: Depto. de Biología Marina; Centro Interdisciplinario de Ciencias Marinas; Instituto Politecnico Nacional; Av. I.P.N. s/n, Col. Playa Palo de Sta. Rita, C.P. 23096, A.P. 592, La Paz, B.C.S., México Send Orso mail at mol@lapaz.cromwell.com.mx

---