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APLYSIDAE 285
G. pacificu77i Bergh from the Aleutians is similar, but yellowish with red
flecks. There are i6 to 20 gill leaflets. Margin of mantle without a flagel-
lum, as in rubrum. Uncommon from 9 to 15 fathoms. G. cmereum Dall
(British Columbia) is 1 1 mm. in length, and a uniform dusky-slate color. It
also lacks a posterior flagellum on the mantle.
Superfamily APLYSIACEA
Faviily APLYSIIDAE
Genus Aplysia Linne 1767
Dorsal lobes free, well-separated and used for swimming. Shell internal,
thin, flat, horny, with little or no lime, and colored amber. Skin smoothish.
They give off a harmless purple ink, Tethys is a name which was for a long
time applied to this group, but it is now restricted to a nudibranch genus.
Aplysia is a conserved name (see fig. 6og).
Aplysia willcoxi Heilprin Willcox's Sea-hare
Cape Cod to both sides of Florida.
5 to 9 inches in length. Mantle under the lobes with a minute perfora-
tion or fleshy tube above the area of the shell. Color dark-brown with slight
maculations on the swimming lobes, head and neck. There are large, rounded,
fairly regular, yellowish scallopings along the inner border of the lobes.
Mantle and gills light-purple and yellow. Common. The form perviridis
Pilsbry is clear green on the head and tentacles, the lobes olive-green with a
coarse-meshed reticulation of black, subdivided by fine veins; irregularly
maculated all over with light-green, with an occasional clumping of white
dots.
Aplysia dactylomela Rang Spotted Sea-hare
South half of Florida and the West Indies.
4 to 5 inches in length, characterized by its pale-yellow to yellowishgreen
color and the fairly large, usually irregular circles of violet-black scat-
tered over the body. Common in some grassy localities. A. protea Rang of
the West Indies is very similar, but the circles are more numerous, and often
with smaller circles or large spots within the larger ones.
Aplysia fioridensis Pilsbry Sooty Sea-hare
Lower Florida Keys. The West Indies?
4 inches in length. Color deep purple-black, the inside of the swimming