Novaeolidiella janae Carmona, Martín-Hervás, Pola, Gosliner & Cervera, 2026

Description

Body broad and flattened, tapering posteriorly. Ground colour translucent white, with pearly white spots and golden to yellowish-brown pigment covering the surface. Head and dorsum bear yellowish-brown pigment; pearly white pigment may overlay the pericardial area. Rhinophores conical with blunt tips, smooth, with pearly white base and apex and golden pigment in between. Oral tentacles longer than the rhinophores, pearly white over the basal two-thirds and golden over the distal third. Cerata elongate and uniform in thickness, arranged in dense rows; the yellowish-brown to dark digestive-gland branches are visible through the translucent epithelium, which is overlain by pearly white pigment. Cnidosacs translucent. Japanese specimens have been described as bearing two brown longitudinal lines on each ceras, consistent with the digestive-gland branches and the overlying pearly white pigment. Nocturnal; burrows in sand. Reaches about 30 mm in length.

Distribution

Indian Ocean to western Pacific. Type locality: Mabini, Batangas Province, Luzon, Philippines. Also recorded from Japan.

Etymology

The specific epithet janae is a dedication to Jana Callejo Carmona, the daughter of the lead author Leila Carmona.

Remarks

The species had long been figured under provisional names: Cerberilla sp. A in Carmona et al. 2013, Cerberilla sp. 7 in Gosliner et al. 2015, and Cerberilla sp. 8 in Gosliner et al. 2018. In Japan it was treated as Cerberilla incola Burn, 1974 in Ono & Kato 2020 and given the Japanese name "Namida-kasumi-mino-umiushi". The molecular phylogeny by Carmona et al. 2026 showed that the species belongs to neither Cerberilla nor Aeolidiella, and the new genus Novaeolidiella was erected with Novaeolidiella drusilla (Bergh, 1900) comb. nov. as type species. The penial papilla of N. janae may bear spines — the first such report in Aeolidiidae.

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References

• Cerberilla sp. 7, Terrence Gosliner, Ángel Valdés and David Behrens. (2015). Nudibranch and Sea Slug Identification Indo-Pacific. New World Pubns Inc.
• ナミダカスミミノウミウシ（新称） Cerberilla incola Burn, 1974, 小野篤司 & 加藤昌一. (2020). 新版 ウミウシ. 誠文堂新光社.
• Novaeolidiella janae Carmona, Martín-Hervás, Pola, Gosliner & Cervera, 2026, Carmona L., Martín-Hervás M.R., Pola M., Gosliner T.M. & Cervera J.L. (2026). Unfinished symphony: updating the systematics of Aeolidiidae (Nudibranchia, Gastropoda), with special focus on Aeolidiella Bergh, 1867. Invertebrate Systematics, 40: IS24105. https://doi.org/10.1071/IS24105