Eastern Pacific Nudibranch News: Correction re Apata pricei and Apata cf. pricei
Time to take a second look at your Apata observations, and time to get out a pencil and annotate your field guide.
Correction from the authors to "Nudibranchs and Sea Slugs of the Eastern Pacific," 2022: Please note that the bold subheads on page 122 of Apata pricei and Apata cf. pricei were inadvertently swapped. The first, more colorful slug on page 122 should be labeled Apata cf pricei, and the second slug should be labeled Apata pricei. The authors also inform me that the range of Apata pricei has been updated to Korea, Japan, and Russia through Ketchikan, Alaska to Monterey Bay, California.
THEREFORE, according to the Bible, we have three zones to look at:
1) North of Crescent City, California thorough Alaska, plus Korea, Japan and Russia: You're 100% Apata pricei (though there's possibly a subspecies in Asia, which we won't get into here).
2) South of Monterey Bay, California: You're 100% Apata cf. pricei. Please change all of your observations to Genus Apata (no species-level ID) and in Description, write "Apata cf. pricei" until these are formally described.
3) Overlap Zone in California (Crescent City to Monterey Bay): These observations will need to be re-identified manually; please look for the following ID clues:
Apata pricei: no reddish band on cerata and opaque white on most of the length of the rhinophores
Apata cf. pricei: reddish band near the tip of the cerata, with opaque white on tips of rhinophores only
BOTH COMMON NAMES on iNat ("Smooth Tooth Aeolid" and "Price's Aeolid") refer to the true Apata pricei; Apata cf. pricei does not have a common name and is unlikely to have one until it is formally described.
Good luck correcting your IDs and a big thank you to @lutea11 for all her work on this difficult genus and the excellent field guide.
@tgosliner @jeffgoddard @hsini_lin @juliabohemian @walkabata @chilipossum @mcduck @passiflora4 @nudibitch @helgeweissig @erwinkoehler @chlorophilia @lemurdillo @jpsilva @imlichentoday @kueda @kestrel @rebeccafay @jannvendetti @hfb @lutea11
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oh gosh haha! thank you for looking into this!
to clarify - Apata cf pricei is undescribed? so the original description by Macfarland in 1996 was the northern form?
the original description of previously "coryphella pricei" sounds like the southern form to me? kind of hard to tell since im going off of color description (citizen science brain)
"General ground color of living animal a clear translucent gray, the ovotestis lobules, when mature, showing through the integument as pale yellowish-pink masses. Some specimens have a cream cast and show a pale red-orange spot of top of the head. The axis of each ceras is occupied by a deep olive green band, this diverticulum of the liver, continuing distally nearly to the tip of the ceras, and proximally uniting with a basal line of the same color, which gives off similar branches to each ceras in the row. In the post-cardiac cerata rows from near its median end, this basal line of green is continued downward laterally, curving around the lobes of the ovotestis to a median ventral band of a similar color, which can be follow forward more or less clearly to its origin from the posterior portion of the stomach. The cerata of the pre-cardiac group have a similar axid of dark green arising from a transverse band at the base of each row. The basal bands unite at their median ends with a lateral band on either side, which passes backward to the stomach.
The tip of each ceras is encrusted with white, below which is borne a subterminal band of rich deep brown, becoming yellow and diffuse on its lower margin.
The anterior tentacles are translucent gray, sprinkled with encrusting dots of white. The outer half of the rhinophores tends to be a pale yellow-green upon the translucent gray ground color."
https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/3152823#page/339/mode/1up
@nudibitch Apata pricei is described; Apata cf. pricei is undescribed (the cf. - "compare to" - in the name implies this; read it as "Something in genus Apata that we can compare to pricei.").
@lutea11 may be able to speculate on the 1966 description, which may need revision/updating. I think MacFarland described these from Monterey Bay, which is the southern end of the overlap zone described in Behrens et al, 2022, and he may not have realized he had two species in the area based solely on the morphology of his few specimens. I have been told there is a significant difference in their DNA. Another instance of "needs more work."
@anudibranchmom Thank you, Robin!
@anudibranchmom, @nudibitch, MacFarland (1966) described Coryphella pricei based on specimens solely "in and near Monterey Bay in rocky tidepools, well out beyond extreme low-water mark, upon bryozoan or hydroid colonies, crawling upon submerged algae, or floating at the surface of quiet pools." His description (p. 315) and illustration (plate 58, Fig. 6) of the color of the cerata are uneqivocal: "The tip of each ceras is encrusted with white, below which is borne a subterminal band of rich deep brown, becoming yellow and diffuse on its lower margin." That is Apata pricei at the top of p. 122 of Behrens et al. (2022), not Apata cf. pricei underneath (also pictured here, from Somoma County: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mcduck/3505465052; CASIZ 181322).
I'm not sure of the evidence behind the recent statements suggesting the reverse, but based on MacFarland's description, I think there has been a mix-up and am sticking to the A. pricei we have all recognized from most of California for so long.
@jeffgoddard So just to clarify, you think Behrens at al. (2022) is correct?
@tidepooltales, yes, I think Behrens et al. (2022) is correct regarding A. pricei.
@lutea11 can you take a look at Jeff’s comments above please? Is it possible that you did NOT make an error, or need to correct it?
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