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Thuridilla indopacifica
Photo was taken at 10 metres depth at Tablamu, Phangnga Province, Western ThailandPhoto courtesy of Lawrence Neal
Copyright 2010
Thuridilla indopacifica Gosliner, 1995
Thuridilla indopacifica is a brightly coloured Sacoglossan species, easy to identify with its undulating orange parapodial border, thin black sub-marginal line and longitudinal row of cobalt blue or turquoise patches. The flanks of the animal are usually pale green with tiny white specks.
Published sightings indicate a range extending across the Indian Ocean, from the Gulf of Oman, East and Southern Africa to Western Australia and Bali in Indonesia. The individuals shown here were found out in the open crawling on algae-covered rocks or sand in the Andaman Sea. This species is probably the least common of the three Thuridilla species presently known from the Andaman Sea, the other two being
Thuridilla gracilis and
Thuridilla moebii(both links courtesy of Bill Rudman's Sea Slug Forum). The specimen shown above was 20 mm long.
Bangkok, Thailand
Feb., 2011
Lawrence at Tulamben, Bali, Indonesia with
Agung Volcano in background
Lawrence is a newspaper journalist based in Bangkok, Thailand. He escapes the office as often as he can to go diving in the rich waters of the Indo-Pacific but his regular dive sites are just down the road at Pattaya in the Gulf of Thailand or at Khao Lak on the Andaman coast. Lawrence uses a Nikon D200 in a Nexus housing with a pair of Inon Z240s. The photo at top was taken using a 105 mm macro lens.
Send Lawrence mail at lorenzo_n@yahoo.com |
