Gymnodoris boiteuxi De Souza-Canal & Valdés, 2025

Location: Kutama, Amakusa, Kumamoto, Japan
Date: 2025/05/15
Length: 10mm
Depth: 15.0m
Water temperature: 18.0℃

Description

Body oval to elongate, covered with few, low, conical tubercles arranged in a low-density irregular pattern; velum distinct with three lateral tubercles on each side, continuing posteriorly into an inconspicuous notal rim. Color dirty white; tubercles orange; small opaque white irregular lines or flecks scattered all over the dorsum. Internal organs visible through the body wall as cream and white masses. Posterior end of foot translucent grey. Rhinophores bulbous, with 8 lamellae, light brown with translucent white bases. Gill underdeveloped, of only 5 short, inconspicuous, opaque white, simple leaves.

Distribution

Known only from a single specimen collected at Koumac, North Province, New Caledonia, at 3 m depth.

Etymology

Verbatim from De Souza-Canal & Valdés 2025:

This species is named in honor of Benoît Boiteux in appreciation for his help and support during the Koumac 2.3 expedition, when the holotype of this species was collected.

Remarks

Nested in a well-supported clade containing several other undescribed species (Gymnodoris sp. 17, sp. 38, sp. U and sp. V sensu Knutson & Gosliner 2022), but externally very different from all of them, with the unique combination of few orange tubercles, a very small white gill, and large bulbous rhinophores. It is also similar to G. fleuroti sp. nov., but the bulbous brown rhinophores of G. boiteuxi sp. nov. are very different from the conical, white and orange ones of G. fleuroti sp. nov., and the body shape is more rounded anteriorly. The two species also differ in radular and reproductive anatomy.