Verconia cf romeri (Risbec, 1928)
14mm
This one could be Verconia
romeri. Most specimens mostly lack the distinct white border characteristic
of that species, although there is usually a faint trace of white along the
very margin. The Marshall Islands specimens match the redescription of V.
romeri in Rudman
(1984) in the vibratile gills and white mantle glands that show up in preservative.
The radulae are also similar if not exactly identical. Rudman's specimen had
fully had the outer half of the half-row with elongate adenticulate teeth while
the Kwajalein specimen
in the first photo below had middle half row teeth with a single denticle that
diminished outward and disappeared on the outermost 2 or 3 teeth. A drawing
of selected teeth from the 14mm Kwajalein
specimen's radula is here. The single Enewetak
Atoll specimen was lighter pink; all of the more than a dozen observed at Kwajalein
were darker pink like most of the photos below. Specimens were found on lagoon
interisland, pinnacle, and leeward seaward reefs under dead coral at depths
of 4 to 12 meters. Four measured specimens ranged from 10 to 14mm. This species
eats the same pink sponge as V. simplex.
A specimen from the Marshalls was figured in Gosliner
et al (2018) as Verconia sp. 9.
The pair in the following photos was found eating pink sponge under a rock
on a Kwajalein Atoll lagoon pinnacle at a depth of about 8m on 30 November 2008.
Notice how the margins especially on the larger one bulge out midlaterally,
similar to what is seen in Verconia decussata
and V. simplex.
The lighter pink specimen in the
next photo was found on 18 August 1981 at 4m in the lagoon of Enewetak Atoll.
The white border around the specimen below is more like other figured specimens
of Verconia romeri, such as that in Gosliner et al (2018). It was a 14mm specimen under dead coral on a Kwajalein Atoll
lagoon reef on 14 August 2010. The lower photo shows it as found, on its prey
pink sponge, before it got disturbed and started crawling away.
Created
19 December 2005
Updated 23 November 2021
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