Kaloplocamus peludo
Valles & Gosliner 2006

Order: NUDIBRANCHIA
Suborder: DORIDINA
Superfamily: ANADORIDOIDEA
Family: Polyceridae
Subfamily: Triophinae

DISTRIBUTION

Wide Indo-West Pacific distribution [Tanzania, Japan, Philippines, Palau, Marshall Ids, Papua New Guinea.

PHOTO

Locality: Seragaki, Okinawa, Japan, Western Pacific, Mixed coral rubble, sand, algae.
Upper Photo: RFB #3726-A / 17 mm / 61 m / 18 Aug 1999 / Seragaki, Okinawa (original Kodachrome at 1.5:1).
Lower Photo: RFB #3567-C / 10 mm / 53 m / 26 Mar 1997 / Seragaki, Okinawa (original Kodachrome at 4:1) Photographer: R. F. Bolland.

The animal is a translucent brownish colour with a pattern of opaque white lines and patches, and scattered irregularly shaped brown spots, all of similar size. In some animals there is an irregular white line running from between the rhinophoes back to the gills where its splits to form a ring around the gills and then joins again posteriorly. The white pigmnetation can also fome short longitudinal streaks elsewhere on the mantle, and in some specimens the median line is not clear.

There are three pairs of long papillae along the edge of the mantle. These are slightly swollen at the tips which give rise to a number of elongate and branching filaments. Around the anterior end of the mantle there are five or six similar papillae, and along the outer edge of the rhinophore sheath there are two or three more. Scattered over the mantle and the sides of the body are smaller conical papillae with an unbranched terminal filament. These filaments give the body and the papillae a hairy appearance which gives the species is its name [peludo = hairy in Spanish].

• Valles, Y. & Gosliner, T. (2006). Shedding Light onto the Genera (Mollusca: Nudibranchia) Kaloplocamus and Plocamopherus with Description of New Species Belonging to These Unique Bioluminescent Dorids. The Veliger 48(3): 178-205.

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