Opisthobranch of the Week is Tritonia sp.

Tritonia sp.
Photo taken at Khor Fakkan, Gulf of Oman, United Arab Emirates
Photo courtesy of Carole and Leon Harris

Tritonia sp. (AKA Mr. Fluffy)

Carole and Leon have been seeing this undescribed Tritonid off the coast of the United Arab Emirates for years. Like so many of us they have given it a common name until it is described officially. To Carole and Leon, this is Mr. Fluffy. I must admit, the name captures the morphology of the gill appendages quite well, as they are slightly different from most Tritonia species being small, tight tufts of fluff.

The rhinophoral shafts appear to lack the usual lateral processes and the clavus is quite different from most species. Too go even farther the frontal processes on the head look more like those of Hancockia (Bill Rudman's Sea Slug Forum) than your normal run of the mill Tritonid.

This species interesting while lines, reticulating over the body and the brown patches make this species easy to identify.

We’d love to know more about this species, like what it eats. Come on guys – collect a couple specimens for us. Thanks in advance.

Dave Behrens
Danville, Calif
Mar. 2005

Webmaster's Notes : The Webmaster would like to acknowledge Dr. Richard Willan from down under for rendering a contrarian opinion which prompted Dave and I to change our original identification from Dentronotus sp. to Tritonia sp..

Carole and Leon Harris live in the United Arab Emirates and have been diving for almost 20 years. One of Carole's favourite photography subject is nudibranchs, because as she says, she is almost guaranteed to get a fairly decent shot since they can't run away.
Living in the UAE has proved to be a most diverse and unexpected smorgasboard of offerings from a wide range of unusual nudis to pipehorses, pygmy sea moths, robust ghostpipefish, hammerheads and whalesharks.
Carole is co-author of a UAE dive guide book which details the top 58 top 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 and has persuaded some restaurants to refrain from serving shark fin soup.
Send Carole and Leon email at carole_underwater@yahoo.com.au

Taxonomic information courtesy of:

David W. Behrens

Author: Pacific Coast Nudibranchs
Co-Author Coral Reef Animals of the Indo Pacific
Proprietor of Sea Challengers Natural History Books

Send Dave mail at dave@seachallengers.com