Parasite from Sea Hare's head?

[Tony R.]

Hi folks I just received a Dolabella auricularia Sea Hare in the mail. I'm drip acclimating it and have noticed some sort of discharge or parasite protruding from its head.

I'm marking this emergency as I'll need to decide if it goes into my display tank at the end of its acclimation which isn't long from now.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

I'm stumped. It does not look like a parasite. At first I thought it might be the radula, what mollusks use to scrape food with. I looked it up, sea hares don't have a structure like that. What they DO apparently have is a male member that attaches near the right side of the head somewhere - could that be it?

Jay

 

[Tony R.]

I'm stumped. It does not look like a parasite. At first I thought it might be the radula, what mollusks use to scrape food with. I looked it up, sea hares don't have a structure like that. What they DO apparently have is a male member that attaches near the right side of the head somewhere - could that be it?

Jay

Holy crap. You're thinking thats genitalia?

Where did you find any info about that I had no luck finding any detailed anatomical diagrams of these guys or there more documented cousins Aplysia.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Holy crap. You're thinking thats genitalia?

Where did you find any info about that I had no luck finding any detailed anatomical diagrams of these guys or there more documented cousins Aplysia.

A few different references; a sea hare forum and Wikipedia. Oddly similar description to your picture - right side of the head and all. The female reproductive organ is also on the right side, just further down. My only concern is why is it protruding? Sometimes invertebrates evert their internal organs when stressed or dying (sea cucumbers for example).

I once had a giant pacific octopus that died and our veterinarian did a necropsy. He exclaimed, wow! I see why this animal died, its filled with huge parasites! He had me preserve some. later on, we found out that they were sperm packets....after he sent them in to a parasitologist!

Jay

 

[Tony R.]

A few different references; a sea hare forum and Wikipedia. Oddly similar description to your picture - right side of the head and all. The female reproductive organ is also on the right side, just further down. My only concern is why is it protruding? Sometimes invertebrates evert their internal organs when stressed or dying (sea cucumbers for example).

I once had a giant pacific octopus that died and our veterinarian did a necropsy. He exclaimed, wow! I see why this animal died, its filled with huge parasites! He had me preserve some. later on, we found out that they were sperm packets....after he sent them in to a parasitologist!

Jay

Thanks so much for getting this line of thinking going. I'm leaning toward this being a genitalia protrusion, I work in a marine invertebrate research lab and many mollusc ditch and regrow their genitalia. They don't seem to be so sentimental about it. Im curious if the shipping stress caused this response.

That story about the octopus is wild! They're so short lived but so beautiful and magnificent. I'm sure you made the parasitologists day.

One my the guys who works in my university studies marine parasites so I snapped a pic to him. Im sure we'll all have a laugh if we find out its some good ole reproductive parts.

 

[dochou]

This is very interesting. Did you end up putting the hare in your tank?
How is it doing?

 

[Woodneers]

This thread made my day! lol! The crazy things one learns on this forum is impressive!

 

[Jamesmost]

Wild.... so sea hares during copulation , can be mistaken for conjoined twins by the head .

 

[Tony R.]

This is very interesting. Did you end up putting the hare in your tank?
How is it doing?

I absolutely did!

It was determined to definitely be a very odd sea hare phallus haha. The real kicker is that it fell off, yup sea hares have disposable genitalia.