Sluggy McSlugface no more: sea slug named for fly-in, fly-out mining workers

Multicoloured slug, a species of nudibranch, was discovered in 2000 off the Western Australian coast and will be officially named Moridilla fifo

Calla Wahlquist

Monday 22 August 201605.51 BSTLast modified on Monday 22 August 201606.15 BST

A multicoloured sea slug discovered off the coast of Western Australia has been named for the state’s fly-in, fly-out mining workforce after a judging panel ruled that Sluggy McSlugface breached the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature.

The slug, which is a species of nudibranch, was discovered in 2000 off the coast of Dampier, about 1,500km north of Perth, by the WA scientist Dr Nerida Wilson.

Wilson will apply for it to be officially named Moridilla fifo after a public competition to name the nudibranch received more than 4,500 entries.

A significant number of those entries suggested either Sluggy McSlugface or Nudie McNudeface, but Dr Amber Beavis, who was on the judging panel, said that breached international rules against “frivolous” scientific names, as well as a few other regulations.

 “Sluggy McSlugface – there’s no way to Latinise that,” Beavis said. “You can do the ‘sluggy’ bit but to get the spirit of that would be impossible.”

Beavis said Moridilla fifo was the clear winner after Patrick Dwyer made a compelling argument likening the nudibranch’s toxic secretions to the transient workforce.

The logic, as explained by Dwyer, is that nudibranches eat jellyfish and other animals with stingers and then secrete those same toxins out of its cerata, the blue and orange sausage-shaped appendages that line its back, as a form of self-defence. Fly-in fly-out (fifo) workers, Dwyer told Radio National, were similarly “an important resource also brought in from elsewhere”.

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New Pacific Species Include Shrimp in a Sponge

Becky Oskin, OurAmazingPlanet Staff Writer

A vast array of new species was recently discovered in the world's most spectacular reef you've never heard of, Madang Lagoon in Papua New Guinea.

"It is the most diverse reef in the world," said marine biologist Jim Thomas, a researcher at Nova Southeastern University's National Coral Reef Institute in Hollywood, Fla.

A new species of nudibranch discovered in

Madang Lagoon, Papua New Guinea.
CREDIT: Jim Thomas 

Madang Lagoon is also one of the world's most threatened coral reefs, Thomas added, imperiled by nearby industry. A World Bank-sponsored tuna cannery opened recently, drawing tiger sharks attracted to offal dumped offshore. Another 10 canneries are planned, Thomas said. Along the Ramu River, which drains into the lagoon, a massive nickel mine just started operation. The mining company dumps its sludge a mile offshore, but Thomas is concerned the sediment could contaminate the lagoon.

Continued:  http://www.livescience.com/27592-new-reef-species-madang-lagoon.html

New species of marine snail found off Florida

Biologists discover new species in fisherman's catch

April 2011. Biologists with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), along with scientists from California State Polytechnic University, have identified a new marine species of nudibranch, Chromodoris fentoni, a type of shell-less snail found in the Gulf of Mexico.

FWC biologists first observed this nudibranch when commercial aquarium-trade fisherman Daniel Fenton donated sponges and other specimens to the FWC's Fish and Wildlife Research Institute (FWRI) in St. Petersburg in 2009. Fenton collected the specimens from the Gulf of Mexico, off Tarpon Springs. While sorting through the donation, FWRI biologists Nancy Sheridan and Joan Herrera observed the unusual creature.

"We were unable to identify one of the nudibranchs and realized that it was possible we were seeing something entirely new," said Sheridan. "The discovery was especially rewarding because it resulted from a cooperative effort between industry and science."

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