Doris sugashimae (Baba, 1998)

Location: Sangashita, Hayama, Kanagawa, Japan
Date: 2026/05/07
Length: 10mm
Depth: 5.0m
Water temperature: 19.5℃

Description

A medium-sized Dorididae, body length 40 mm alive. External morphology closely resembles Doris tricolor, but distinguished by: (1) small, granular, uniformly sized dorsal tubercles (versus rounded, spiculose, variable in size in tricolor); (2) similar small tubercles around the rhinophoral pocket margin; (3) five tripinnate gills; (4) auriculate oral tentacles, externally grooved; (5) bilabiate anterior foot edge with the upper lip entire; (6) dorsum greyish yellow, sprinkled with fine yellow spots; (7) the middorsal stripe characteristic of tricolor is inconspicuous, replaced by a discontinuous dark-brown line encircling the middorsal longitudinal space between the rhinophores and the gills; (8) dorsal tubercle tips spotted yellow (versus dark brown in tricolor); (9) rhinophores and gills greyish yellow; (10) underside yellow.

Distribution

Type locality is Sugashima, near Toba, Shima (Mie Prefecture), Japan. At the time of description, recorded only from the type locality on the Pacific coast of central Japan.

Etymology

The specific epithet sugashimae is a feminine-genitive place-name adjective formed from Sugashima, the type locality (where the Sugashima Marine Biological Station of Nagoya University is located). This is a toponymic etymology, not a patronym.

Remarks

Originally described as Archidoris sugashimae. Archidoris sensu lato was subsequently sunk into Doris, giving the current combination. Distinguished from Doris tricolor by granular uniformly sized dorsal tubercles, the inconspicuous middorsal stripe replaced by a dark-brown encircling line, and yellow tubercle tips.