Saw this at about 15' on a coral reef off Key West, Florida in July. Thought is was a frog fish at first, but on closer inspection it was too big and seemed more like a sea slug. Was at least 10 inches long, maybe 12 inches. Any help appreciated! Picture link (full pixels) here:Unidentified Invertebrate
Critter Identification / Archived topic
Large-ish (12") likely invertebrate - maybe sea slug
Started by jsnorman ·
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Read-only discussion
Large-ish (12") likely invertebrate - maybe sea slug
7 posts
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Defo looks like a sea slug. Possibly sea hare though I can't quite make out the fine details in the photo. Someone much more authorative will be along to enlighten us, I'm sure!
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Close, but not quite. A. californica lives in, well california. Since the photo was taken in Florida, it would have to be A. dactylomela
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Close, but not quite. A. californica lives in, well california. Since the photo was taken in Florida, it would have to be A. dactylomela
Sorry for the bad photo, btw. I was snorkeling with my 7 year old daughter (without my flash rig of course) and could not keep my camera as still as when I am SCUBA diving, so out of the multiple shots I took only this one came out ok.
It certainly does appear close to A. dactylomela and I have found several pics online that are really close (especially the black rings that seem to characterize A. dactylomela), but this one was very big, at least 10" maybe more. I read on Sea Slugsite that these can grow up to 16 cm in length but that would only be a little over 6" and this one was much larger. Perhaps I just saw an unusually large one? Can A. dactylomela get to 10"?
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Sorry for the bad photo, btw. I was snorkeling with my 7 year old daughter (without my flash rig of course) and could not keep my camera as still as when I am SCUBA diving, so out of the multiple shots I took only this one came out ok.
It certainly does appear close to A. dactylomela and I have found several pics online that are really close (especially the black rings that seem to characterize A. dactylomela), but this one was very big, at least 10" maybe more. I read on Sea Slugsite that these can grow up to 16 cm in length but that would only be a little over 6" and this one was much larger. Perhaps I just saw an unusually large one? Can A. dactylomela get to 10"?
I saw one of these in the St. Vincent Grenadines and in Bocas Del Toro Panama, they were both about 8 inches in length, so most likely they can get to 10 inches.
Fontaine
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Your animal is:
Aplysia brasiliana
a "Spotted seahare"
Page 96 of Caribbean Sea Slugs. (a shameless plug)
Anne DuPont
Caribbean Sea Slugs
