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Opisthobranch of the Week Data
Taxonomy:
Siphopteron ladrones is considered to be very rare on Okinawa as I have seen and collected only a single individual from six meters, however the photograph of the collected animal was not particularly good. To the rescue comes Mr. Kazuko Matsuda, who kindly offered to allow me to post his considerably better image than my own [the animal was photographed but not collected]. As a long-time diver and U/W photographer Kazuko reports that this is the only specimen which he, as well as his dive partners, have observed on Okinawa.
This attractive little gastropterid was described by Carlson & Hoff (1974) from Guam. They named the animal ladrones after an old Spanish name for the Mariana Islands.
Siphopteron ladrones is one of nine described species of Siphopteron currently found on Okinawa. The nine described species are:
In addition to the above nine described species I've collected several undescribed species as well. Gosliner (1989) lists twelve species of Siphopteron and many of the species are quite small and are probably overlooked by most divers.
Literature Cited:
