Family Velutinidae

The Velutinidae is a group of mollusks that resemble sea slugs but are more closely related to groups such as the cowries. They have often colored tissue that covers an internal, thin shell. In the Marshalls, there is a large black blob that sits out in the open and is easy to recognize, and there is a small, often colorful but usually cryptic species (or multiple species) that hides under rocks or in algae. Most of the latter resemble the colonial tunicates upon which they prey, or they look like blobs of colored sponge and debris. We often run across them while hunting for nudibranchs, but it has been difficult to get any positive species identifications. For all we know, they all could belong to a single extremely variable species, or they could all be different. We present a variety of specimens, sorted mostly by appearance, in the hopes that someone out there will become interested enough to try to sort all these things out. Except for the large black blob, all the rest are listed as species of Lamellaria, although even that is not certain. Most of the Lamellaria species were not measured, but I suspect the largest of the figured animals was probably not much more than 30mm.

Coriocella nigra	Lamellaria orange tunicate mimic	Lamellaria peach tunicate mimic
Lamellaria pale pink tunicate mimic	Lamellaria pink tunicate mimic	Lamellaria red tunicate mimic
Lamellaria white tunicate mimic 1	Lamellaria white tunicate mimic 2	Lamellaria white tunicate mimic 3
Lamellaria yellow tunicate mimic 1	Lamellaria yellow tunicate mimic 2	Lamellaria yellow orange tunicate mimic
Lamellaria brown tunicate mimic	Lamellaria orange bryozoan mimic	Lamellaria black sponge mimic
Lamellaria brown-yellow sponge mimic	Lamellaria orange sponge mimic	Lamellaria pink sponge mimic
Lamellaria brown sponge mimic	Lamellaria brown-orange sponge mimic	Lamellaria white sponge mimic 1
Lamellaria white sponge mimic 2	Lamellaria yellow sponge mimic 1	Lamellaria yellow sponge mimic 2
Lamellaria sponge mimic 1	Lamellaria sponge mimic 2	Lamellaria sponge mimics 3
Typical Lamellaria shells

Back to Shells

Kwajalein Underwater home

All photos are protected by copyright. Please contact uwkwaj@yahoo.com for more information on purchase, use, or redistribution of any photos.