Hypselodoris pulchella (Rüppell & Leuckart, 1830)

Description

Reaches about 110 mm in length. Ground colour milky white. The outer mantle margin is bordered by a fine purple line, and the dorsum bears a coarse pale-purple reticulate pattern overlaid with scattered round yellow spots, each ringed by orange-yellow. The rhinophores are purple with a white longitudinal line in front of and behind the lamellate club. Gills are off-white, with the leaf margins purple. Resembles Risbecia ghardaqana, but the latter has notably larger yellow spots.

Distribution

Indian Ocean and western Pacific. Records include South Africa, Tanzania, Seychelles, Madagascar, the Red Sea, Oman, Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia and Indonesia. The type locality is El-Tor on the Sinai Peninsula, Red Sea.

Etymology

The specific epithet pulchella is the Latin diminutive of pulcher, "beautiful", and means "pretty little one".

Remarks

Originally described as Doris pulchella by Rüppell & Leuckart (Atlas zu der Reise im nördlichen Afrika, Wirbellose Thiere, p. 32, 1830) from material collected at El-Tor in April. The original diagnosis cites about 25 pinnate gills and emphasises the orange dorsal warts together with violet rhinophores, mantle and posterior foot margin. Subsequently treated in Risbecia Odhner, 1934 and later transferred to Hypselodoris Stimpson, 1855.

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References

• Doris pulchella, Rüppell E. & Leuckart F.S. (1828-1830). Atlas zu der Reise im nördlichen Afrika von Eduard Rüppell. Erste Abtheilung. Zoologie, Neue wirbellose Thiere des Rothen Meers. Frankfurt am Main: H.L. Brönner. iv + 47 pp., 12 pls.
• Risbecia pulchella (Ruppell & Leuckart, 1831), Gosliner T.M. & Johnson R.F. (1999). Phylogeny of Hypselodoris (Nudibranchia: Chromodorididae) with a review of the monophyletic clade of Indo-Pacific species, including descriptions of twelve new species. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 125: 1-114. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1096-3642.1999.tb00585.x
• リスベキア・プルケラ, 殿塚孝昌. (2003). ウミウシガイドブック〈3〉. TBSブリタニカ.
• Hypselodoris pulchella, 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.