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''Tethys fimbria'' is a
CLEMAM, accessed 29 December 2010.
The habitat of ''Tethys fimbria'' is seas which have sand or mud on the bottom, in depths from 20 to 150 m.
''Tethys fimbria'' captures and feeds on small
species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of ...
of predatory
Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill t ...
sea slug
Sea slug is a common name for some marine invertebrates with varying levels of resemblance to terrestrial slugs. Most creatures known as sea slugs are gastropods, i.e. they are sea snails (marine gastropod mollusks) that over evolutionary ...
, a nudibranch
Nudibranchs () are a group of soft-bodied marine gastropod molluscs which shed their shells after their larval stage. They are noted for their often extraordinary colours and striking forms, and they have been given colourful nicknames to mat ...
, a marine gastropod mollusk
Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is es ...
in the family Tethydidae
Tethydidae is a family (biology), family of dendronotida, dendronotid nudibranch gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Tritonioidea.Picton, B.; Bouchet, P. (2017). Tethydidae Rafinesque, 1815. In: MolluscaBase (2017). Accessed through: World Regi ...
.
ICZN
The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) is a widely accepted convention in zoology that rules the formal scientific naming of organisms treated as animals. It is also informally known as the ICZN Code, for its publisher, the Int ...
opinion 200 ruled that ''Tethys fimbria'' is a valid name and ''Tethys leporina'' Linnaeus, 1758 is a synonym."''Tethys fimbria'' Linné 1767 "CLEMAM, accessed 29 December 2010.
Distribution
The distribution of ''Tethys fimbria'' includes theMediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ...
and the east coast of the Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the "Old World" of Afr ...
from Portugal in the north, to the Gulf of Guinea
The Gulf of Guinea is the northeasternmost part of the tropical Atlantic Ocean from Cape Lopez in Gabon, north and west to Cape Palmas in Liberia. The intersection of the Equator and Prime Meridian (zero degrees latitude and longitude) is in the ...
in the south.
Description
The length of the body of ''Tethys fimbria'' can reach up to . ''Tethys fimbria'' is translucent, but it has dark spots on its cerata. It has a broad oral hood in the frontal part of its body. Rhinophores are small. ''Tethys fimbria'' has noradula
The radula (, ; plural radulae or radulas) is an anatomical structure used by molluscs for feeding, sometimes compared to a tongue. It is a minutely toothed, chitinous ribbon, which is typically used for scraping or cutting food before the food ...
as is the case in all members of the family Tethydidae.
Ecology
The habitat of ''Tethys fimbria'' is seas which have sand or mud on the bottom, in depths from 20 to 150 m.
''Tethys fimbria'' captures and feeds on small crustacea
Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean gro ...
ns. It uses its broad hood for catching them.
The cerata can be self-amputated (autotomy
Autotomy (from the Greek ''auto-'', "self-" and ''tome'', "severing", αὐτοτομία) or self-amputation, is the behaviour whereby an animal sheds or discards one or more of its own appendages, usually as a self-defense mechanism to elude ...
) as a defence mechanism when the slug is in danger.
Within the mantle large amounts of prostaglandin
The prostaglandins (PG) are a group of physiologically active lipid compounds called eicosanoids having diverse hormone-like effects in animals. Prostaglandins have been found in almost every tissue in humans and other animals. They are der ...
s are produced. Subsequently the prostoglandins are moved to the cerata. The biosynthesis of prostgandins has been studied by Marzo et al. (1991).
References
Further reading
* Cattaneo-Vietti R., Chemello R., Giannuzzi-Savelli R. (1990). ''Atlas of Mediterranean Nudibranchs''. La Conchiglia, Rome. 264 pp. * * Odhner N. H. (1936). "Nudibranchia Dendronotacea - A revision of the system". '' Memoires du Musee Royal d'Histoire Naturelle de Belgique'', series 2, fasc. 3: 1057-1128. (Pl. 1) * Schmekel L. & Portmann A. (1982). ''Opisthobranchia des Mittelmeeres. Nudibranchia und Saccoglossa.''Springer-Verlag
Springer Science+Business Media, commonly known as Springer, is a German multinational publishing company of books, e-books and peer-reviewed journals in science, humanities, technical and medical (STM) publishing.
Originally founded in 1842 ...
, Berlin. 410 pp., 36 plates.
External links
* * {{Use dmy dates, date=May 2017 Tethydidae