Cuthonella elenae

Cuthonella elenae
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Mollusca
Class:	Gastropoda
(unranked):	clade Heterobranchia ; clade Euthyneura ; clade Nudipleura ; clade Nudibranchia ; clade Dexiarchia ; clade Cladobranchia ; clade Aeolidida
Superfamily:	Fionoidea
Family:	Cuthonellidae
Genus:	Cuthonella
Species:	C. elenae
Binomial name
	Cuthonella elenae; Martynov, 2000 [1]

Last updated March 22, 2019

Cuthonella elenae is a species of sea slug, an aeolid nudibranch, a marine gastropod mollusc in the family Cuthonellidae.^[2]

In biology, a species ( ) is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. Other ways of defining species include their karyotype, DNA sequence, morphology, behaviour or ecological niche. In addition, paleontologists use the concept of the chronospecies since fossil reproduction cannot be examined. While these definitions may seem adequate, when looked at more closely they represent problematic species concepts. For example, the boundaries between closely related species become unclear with hybridisation, in a species complex of hundreds of similar microspecies, and in a ring species. Also, among organisms that reproduce only asexually, the concept of a reproductive species breaks down, and each clone is potentially a microspecies.

Sea slug is a common name for some marine invertebrates with varying levels of resemblance to terrestrial slugs. Most creatures known as sea slugs are actually gastropods, i.e. they are sea snails that over evolutionary time have either completely lost their shells, or have seemingly lost their shells due to having a greatly reduced or internal shell. The name "sea slug" is most often applied to nudibranchs, as well as to a paraphyletic set of other marine gastropods without obvious shells.

Nudibranchs are a group of soft-bodied, marine gastropod molluscs which shed their shells after their larval stage. They are noted for their often extraordinary colours and striking forms, and they have been given colourful nicknames to match, such as "clown", "marigold", "splendid", "dancer", and "dragon". Currently, about 3,000 valid species of nudibranchs are known.

Distribution

This species was described from Wrangel Island, Arctic Ocean, Russia.

Wrangel Island is an island in the Arctic Ocean, between the Chukchi Sea and East Siberian Sea. Wrangel Island lies astride the 180° meridian. The International Date Line is displaced eastwards at this latitude to avoid the island as well as the Chukchi Peninsula on the Russian mainland. The closest land to Wrangel Island is the tiny and rocky Herald Island located 60 km (37 mi) to the east. The distance to the closest point on the mainland is 140 km (87 mi). Wrangel Island may have been the last place on earth where mammoths survived.

The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, although some oceanographers call it the Arctic Mediterranean Sea or simply the Arctic Sea, classifying it a mediterranean sea or an estuary of the Atlantic Ocean. It is also seen as the northernmost part of the all-encompassing World Ocean.

Russia, officially the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country in Eastern Europe and North Asia. At 17,125,200 square kilometres (6,612,100 sq mi), Russia is the largest country in the world by area, covering more than one-eighth of the Earth's inhabited land area, and the ninth most populous, with about 146.77 million people as of 2019, excluding Crimea. About 77% of the population live in the western, European part of the country. Russia's capital, Moscow, is the largest metropolitan area in Europe proper and one of the largest cities in the world; other major cities include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg and Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a wide range of environments and landforms. From northwest to southeast, Russia shares land borders with Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia and North Korea. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk and the U.S. state of Alaska across the Bering Strait. However, Russia recognises two more countries that border it, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, both of which are internationally recognized as parts of Georgia.

Related Research Articles

Chukchi Sea is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean. It is bounded on the west by the Long Strait, off Wrangel Island, and in the east by Point Barrow, Alaska, beyond which lies the Beaufort Sea. The Bering Strait forms its southernmost limit and connects it to the Bering Sea and the Pacific Ocean. The principal port on the Chukchi Sea is Uelen in Russia. The International Date Line crosses the Chukchi Sea from northwest to southeast. It is displaced eastwards to avoid Wrangel Island as well as the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug on the Russian mainland.

Ferdinand Friedrich Georg Ludwig Freiherr von Wrangel was a Baltic German explorer and seaman in the Imperial Russian Navy, Honorable Member of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences, a founder of the Russian Geographic Society. He is best known as chief manager of the Russian-American Company, in fact governor of the Russian settlements in present-day Alaska.

Fyodor Fyodorovich Matyushkin was a Russian navigator, Admiral (1867), and a close friend of Aleksandr Pushkin.

The last voyage of the Karluk, flagship of the Canadian Arctic Expedition of 1913–16, ended with the loss of the ship in the Arctic seas, and the subsequent deaths of nearly half her complement of 25. In August 1913, Karluk, a brigantine formerly used as a whaler, became trapped in the ice while sailing to a rendezvous point at Herschel Island. After a long drift across the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, in January 1914 the ship was crushed and sunk. In the ensuing months, the crew and expedition staff struggled to survive, first on the ice and later on the shores of Wrangel Island. In all, eleven men died before rescue.

Henrietta Island is the northernmost island of the De Long archipelago in the East Siberian Sea. Administratively it belongs to the Sakha Republic of the Russian Federation.

Jeannette Island is the easternmost island of the De Long Islands archipelago in the East Siberian Sea. Administratively it belongs to the Sakha Republic of the Russian Federation.

Georgy Alexeyevich Ushakov was a Soviet explorer of the Arctic.

Herald Island is a small, isolated Russian island in the Chukchi Sea, 70 km (43 mi) to the east of Wrangel Island. It rises in sheer cliffs, making it quite inaccessible, either by ship or by plane. The only sliver of accessible shoreline is at its northwestern point, where the cliffs have crumbled into piles of loose rocks and gravel. Its area is 11.3 km² (4.36 sq mi) and the maximum height above sea level is 364 m (1,194 ft). The island is unglaciated and uninhabited.

The Wrangel lemming is a species of rodent in the family Cricetidae. It is found only on Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean off the coast of eastern Russia. Its natural habitat is tundra, and it is threatened by habitat loss.

Colias tyche, the Booth's sulphur or pale Arctic clouded yellow, is a butterfly in the family Pieridae. It is found from Baffin Island west along the Hudson Bay and arctic coasts of the Nunavut and Northwest Territories mainland and the southern tier of Arctic Islands to northern Yukon, Alaska, and Eurasia.

Alvania elenae is a species of minute sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusc or micromollusc in the family Rissoidae.

<i>Cuthonella concinna</i> species of mollusc

Cuthonella concinna is a species of sea slug, an aeolid nudibranch, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Fionidae.

Cuthonella cocoachroma is a species of sea slug, an aeolid nudibranch, a marine gastropod mollusc in the family Cuthonellidae.

Cuthonella is a genus of sea slugs, specifically aeolid nudibranchs, marine gastropod molluscs in the family Cuthonellidae.

Cuthonella berghi is a species of sea slug, an aeolid nudibranch, a marine gastropod mollusc in the family Cuthonellidae.

Cuthonella elioti is a species of sea slug, an aeolid nudibranch, a marine gastropod mollusc in the family Cuthonellidae. It is a replacement name for Cuthonella antarctica Eliot, 1907.

Cuthonella modesta is a species of sea slug, an aeolid nudibranch, a marine gastropod mollusc in the family Cuthonellidae.

Sibirenauta sibirica is a species of small air-breathing freshwater snail, an aquatic pulmonate gastropod mollusk in the family Physidae, a family which are sometimes known as the bladder snails.

References

↑ Martynov A.V. (2000). A new species of Arctic tergipedid Cuthonella elenae sp. nov. (Opisthobranchia, Nudibranchia) off Wrangel Island region. Ruthenica. 10: 5-10.
↑ Gofas, S.; Rosenberg, G. (2016). Cuthonella elenae. In: MolluscaBase (2016). Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species on 2016-12-22.

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[1] Martynov A.V. (2000). A new species of Arctic tergipedid Cuthonella elenae sp. nov. (Opisthobranchia, Nudibranchia) off Wrangel Island region. Ruthenica. 10: 5-10.

[2] Gofas, S.; Rosenberg, G. (2016). Cuthonella elenae. In: MolluscaBase (2016). Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species on 2016-12-22.