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Cerberilla sp.
Photo courtesy of Carole Harris and Leon Betts
Cerberilla sp.
This week we have another one of Carole Harris and Leon Bett's mysteries from the United Arab Emirates. I have decided to call it a Cerberilla for the time being. I am making this call due to the flattened cerata, which laid back over the dorsum as the animal crawls through the maze of bottom debris on a sandy bottom, and the extremely long foot corners and head tentacles.
These species coloration, white with a yellow line down the center of the central cerata and a black line on the more lateral cerata, make it a species I've never seen.
Species of Cerberilla feed by foraging along the surface of soft bottoms, sometimes burrowing in for protection or just to go after deeper prey. They feed on a variety of organisms include worms.
I'd love to learn if any of you have seen this beauty, or have a scientific
name for it.
Danville, Calif
May. 2001
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Carole and Leon live in the United Arab Emirates and have been diving for over 13 years. One of Carole's favourite photography subject is nudibranchs, because as she says, she is almost guaranteed to get a fairly decent shot! Living in the UAE has proved to be a most diverse and unexpected smorgasboard of offerings from a wide range of unusual nudis to robust ghostpipefish, pipehorse, pygmy sea moths, hammerheads, and recently a pygmy sperm whale. Carole is currently working on a UAE dive guide book which is expected to be published in December... Includes details of the most dived locations, colour photographs and dive-site maps. She is also a very active member in the Emirates
Environmental Group, promoting underwater awareness to its members and the
public alike and has struck up a friendship with a reporter who shares the same
environmental eagerness and helps to highlight these matters in the local
newspapers. |
Taxonomic information courtesy of Dave Behrens
David W. Behrens
Author:
Pacific Coast Nudibranchs
Send Dave mail at seachalleng@earthlink.net
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