Gymnodoris bricei De Souza-Canal & Valdés, 2025

Location: Horse Shoes, Okinawa Island (Onna and Yomitan area), Okinawa, Japan
Date: 2010/03/13
Length: 10mm
Depth: 5.0m
Water temperature: 22.0℃

Description

Body narrow, elongate, with numerous small conical to elongate tubercles of varying sizes. Velum distinct, with 6 irregular protuberances/tubercles; notal rim absent, velum fusing with the dorsum posteriorly. Color translucent dirty-white; tubercles red; red line edging the velum. Posterior end of foot translucent grey. Internal organs visible through the body wall as orange and white masses. Rhinophores bulbous, with 8 lamellae, white with red tips. Gill of 12 small, simple, translucent leaves with opaque white bases, arranged in a row anterior to the anus. Foot narrower than notum, opaque white; oral tentacles small, blunt.

Distribution

Described from St. Vincent Bay, South Province, New Caledonia, on a rocky reef at 6 m depth, and presently known only from the type locality.

Etymology

Verbatim from De Souza-Canal & Valdés 2025:

This species is named after Brice De Souza-Canal, father of the first author of this paper, in appreciation for sharing his passion for the marine world as well as his curious and scientific mindset, which helped in the development of critical thinking and detail-oriented skills in the first author, leading her career path.

Remarks

Most similar to Gymnodoris sp. Y as described by Knutson & Gosliner 2022; both species have elongate bodies with orange-red spots and a line bordering the velum anteriorly. However, Gymnodoris sp. Y bears a conspicuous orange patch on the posterior end of the foot, absent in G. bricei. Furthermore, the two species were recovered in different groups in the species delimitation analyses and did not form a monophyletic group in the phylogenetic analyses.