Glossodoris aeruginosa Rudman, 1995

Description

A small to medium chromodorid, holotype 21 mm long preserved. The mantle colour is complex, dominated by a regular pattern of raised white patches which vary in size and aspect at different places on the mantle. In the mid-region between the gills and the rhinophores the background is pale milky green, the white patches are small, rounded and tinged orange-brown, and they aggregate into clusters leaving large green areas. Outside the central region, on the mantle skirt, the white patches are not orange-tinged and aggregate into radially arranged elongate clusters. The brown line around individual patches becomes faint within these clusters, but a darker brown line outlines each whole cluster, giving the mantle skirt a striking pattern of large elongate brown-edged white patches arranged radially. Toward the mantle edge the green background is replaced by brown, forming a broken submarginal band, and a diffuse bluish band darkens to a thin black line at the very edge. The triangular gills are arranged in a horseshoe around the anal papilla.

Distribution

Type locality: Banc Gail, southern Lagoon, between Noumea and Ile Ouen, New Caledonia, 30 m. Originally described from a single specimen.

Etymology

The specific epithet aeruginosa is Latin for "covered in verdigris" — the green oxide that forms on tarnished copper or its alloys — in reference to the colour pattern of this species.

Remarks

The reproductive characters are similar to those of the Glossodoris pallida - G. angasi group, with a small pouch-like structure at the genital opening probably representing a homologue of the vestibular gland.

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References

• Glossodoris aeruginosa n.sp., Rudman, W. B. (1995). The Chromodorididae (Opisthobranchia: Mollusca) of the Indo-West Pacific: further species from New Caledonia and the Noumea romeri colour group. Molluscan Research. 16(1): 1-43. https://doi.org/10.1080/13235818.1995.10673663
• Glossodoris aeruginosa, Helmut Debelius, Rudie H. Kuiter. (2007). Nudibranchs of the World.
• Glossodoris aeruginosa, Johnson R.F. & Gosliner T.M. (2012). Traditional taxonomic groupings mask evolutionary history: a molecular phylogeny and new classification of the chromodorid nudibranchs. PLoS ONE 7(4): e33479.