Author: (Quoy & Gaimard, 1825)

Order: Acteonoidea  Family: Aplustridae

Maximum Size: 10 mm

Sightings: Sunshine Coast

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Micromelo guamensis (Quoy & Gaimard, 1825)

External features assisting to differentiate from its congeners:
– Light “aqua-blue” margin followed by dark blue band
– Large compound white patches (distance between patches in some instances smaller than patches)
– Slightly wavy posterior margin to headshield lobes

This site originally listed a single Micromelo species – Micromelo undatus (Bruguiere, 1972). Molecular sequencing and morphological work, (Feliciano et al, 2021), has revealed a number of cryptic Micromelo species and demonstrating that Micromelo undatus is restricted to an Atlantic distribution. Our sightings of Micromelo on the Sunshine Coast include three of those cryptic species:
Micromelo barbarae
Micromelo scriptus
Micromelo guamensis

(Updated May 2022)

References:
– Feliciano, K., Malaquias, M. A. E., Stout, C., Brenzinger, B., Gosliner, T. M. & Valdes, A. (2021). Molecular and morphological analyses reveal pseudocryptic diversity in Micromelo undatus (Bruguiere, 1792) (Gastropoda: Heterobranchia: Aplustridae). Systematics and Biodiversity, 19(7): 834–858