Family TERGIPEDIDAE Bergh, 1889

Family Tergipedidae. Cuthona sp..(from Beesley, Ross & Wells 1998) [S. Weidland]

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Introduction

A large family of generally small, often colourful, aeolid nudibranchs. All species eat hydroids or the flesh of encrusting corals, and are usually difficult to see when upon or among their food. The body is usually slender, the oral tentacles long and slender, the rhinophores mostly smooth, though species with annulate, lamellate and partly ribbed occur locally. The cerata vary considerably in number from a series of single cerata well spaced along each side of the body, to densely crowded cerata so close that little of the body is visible. The radula is a series of single denticulate teeth. The anus opens on the right side between the first and second clusters of cerata.

[Compiled from Burn (in press 2012)]

General References

Beesley, P.L., Ross, G.J.B. & Wells, A. (eds) 1998. Mollusca: The Southern Synthesis. Fauna of Australia. Melbourne : CSIRO Publishing Vol. 5(Part B) pp. vi–viii, 565–1234. [1017]

Burn, R. 2006. A checklist and bibliography of the Opisthobranchia (Mollusca: Gastropoda) of Victoria and the Bass Strait area, south-eastern Australia. Museum Victoria Science Report 10: 1-42

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