Finding a new species can take place in all sorts of unlike ways from reclassifying species found on new genetic info with alittle avail from Will Smith , finding themhiding in the tree , or spending months bet tight atmuseum specimens . scientist are always get wind more about the creature species that surround us . Now a new species ofsea slughas been discovered in British waters almost by accident .
scientist from the UK ’s Centre for Environment , Food and Aquaculture Science ( Cefas ) and the University of Cadiz in Spain collected 14 specimens while doing routine surveys of fishery off the southwest seacoast of England and one in the Gulf of Cadiz . Over 100 mintage of sea punch are known to live in British waters but this one had something a fiddling bite strange .
The young species , described as " emollient and corpse - colored with white mote " , has been namedPleurobranchaea britannicaand is around 2 - 5 cm ( 0.7 - 1.9 inches ) long . ab initio , because of the typical side gill on the correct side of the wight , researcher thought it might be another species ofPleurobranchaea meckeli , which is typically found in Senegal . However , this species has never been seen before in UK waters lead scientist to embark on to question the dead on target identity of the sample distribution they had collected .
This new species increases the number of sea slugs in the Pleurobranchaea genus to three.Image Courtesy of Ross Bullimore ©
" It is exciting to see that workaday piscary surveys can still extend to such discovery . It only took a brief review of two specimens to be sure-footed that we had hit upon a species ofPleurobranchaea . This was thrilling because no other coinage from this genus had been documented in UK waters , or even this far compass north , ” said Ross Bullimore , a nautical ecologist at Cefas and co - author of the composition line the ocean poke , in a statement sent to IFLScience .
Eventually , the specimen were send to a squad in Spain where the researchers see nearly at both the DNA and liken the structures to that of known species . They reason that the specimen was a blade novel species .
Sea slugs are one of the mostbrightly coloredand diverse groups of beast with some displayingincredible featuresand unique coming into court . They also can take on share of their target , either repurposingcells for photosynthesisor becoming toxic byconsuming toxic animals .
" When Cefas scientist contacted me and told me that they had collected individuals belong to the ocean sluggard genusPleurobranchaea , but whose specific identicalness was not unclouded , I was really surprised , " said Dr Juan Lucas Cervera Currado of the University of Cadiz . " foremost , because species from this genus have never been found in the British Isles , and second because the opening of having found a new species of this genus in European waters was really exciting . ”
Pluerobrancheaare commonly known as side - gilled sea slugs , their branchia situate on the right side of the body , allowing them to extract oxygen from the water system . No other group of sea sluggard found in UK waters have this anatomy so the distinct leaf - similar – or " canoe paddle " structure as the team describes it – side lamella alerted them to the fact they had found something not found in UK waters before .
They suggest it could have a range as far to the south as Spain and even off the slide of Portugal . The two other species in the genus includePleurobranchaea meckeliandPleurobranchaea morosa . The first lives in the Mediterranean Sea and can even be happen off Senegal . The second is much rare and less well - known . However , this is not good intelligence as the researchers suggest that climate modification could be making this species move into more northerly waters as the temperatures increase .
The team is thrilled though to have give away a brand newfangled sea clout mintage . " There is often an assumption that we know everything there is to jazz about species found in UK amnionic fluid , but this just goes to show that there is still so much to memorize in our own backyard , " enunciate Bullimore .
The survey is published inZoosystematics and Evolution .
