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Any ideas about this one?
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Lovely, excellent photo of a most unusual nudibranch. I guess it may be a greedy and bloated Melibe engeli . I will ask the nudi experts and report back.
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Looks like M.engeli is a possibilitysee:
http://www.seaslugforum.net/showall/melienge
it seems quite variable. Where was is photographed?
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The Sea Slug Forum, as Chris Ross notes, has an excellent discussion by Bill Rudman and others, of Melibe engeli and associated Melibes such as the Melibe viridis:
http://www.seaslugforum.net/showall/meliengeand watch this one for fun:
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Thanks for all the help. Found a similar photo in above article.
Smart people on Wetpixel! -
As I mentioned above, I forwarded this nudibranch to Dr Terry Gosliner of the California Academy of Sciences and noted author of many books and articles on nudibranchs, who has just now replied:
"I am pretty sure this is a regenerating M. colemani where the head has been chomped by some predator. "
Indeed, if one looks at the front part of this nudi with a magnifying glass, the forward cerata is not attached directly to the body but rather is floating, and there is no mouth, or head parts; they got chomped off!
Have any of you Wetpixelers seen something like this?
What a great photo by Hulkster, with an amazing conclusion!