M-1021 AEOLID NUDIBRANCH

Aeolids feed on Aiptasia pallida anemone are helpful for home aquarists. Nudibranchs are shelless mollusks. Aeolids are well known for their ability to feed on hydroid polyps, absorb the nematocysts without harm, and utilize them in their own defense. Aeolid Nudibranchs are a suborder of Nudibranchia, the largest order in the subclass Opistobranchia (Ellis 2001). Nudibranch (pronounced Nudi-brank), means naked gills. Those organisms in the subclass Opistobrachia are hermaphroditic and have the atrium of the heart posterior to the ventricle (McDonald 1999). The order Nudibranchia is characterized by lack of shell, mantle cavity, operculum, and ctenidial gills in the adult form (McDonald 1999). There are four suborders of Nudibranchia: Doridoidea, Aeolidoidea, Dendronotoidea, and Arminoidea (Ellis 2001). Aeolids take their name from the Greek god of the winds, Aeolus because of the waving of their cerata resembles streamers in the wind (Tackett and Tackett 2003).