Trapania squama
Gosliner & Fahey, 2008

Order: NUDIBRANCHIA
Suborder: DORIDINA
Superfamily: ANADORIDOIDEA
Family: Goniodorididae

DISTRIBUTION

Known from Papua New Guinea and the Marshall Islands

PHOTO

Upper right: CASIZ 070423, Papua New Guinea, 11 mm. Photo: T. Gosliner. Lower left: CASIZ 121091. Radular morphology. Close-up of teeth, scale=10 µm. [From Gosliner & Fahey 2008: Fig 2D]. Lower right: Marshall Ids. 5-9 mm long alive. Photo: Scott Johnson.

The body is a pale creamy orange with an open reticulate pattern of thin dark brown lines. In some places there can be small clusters of dark brown rings. The black lines of the open network are outlined with white. In a few places, such as the front of the head and the oral tentacles, the creamy orange background colour is absent and instead there is a translucent brown background colour and opaque, sometimes raised spots. Other places with a similar spotted pattern include a region behind the rhinophores, and the posterior end of the body.

The extra-rhinophoral and extra-branchial appendages, the rhinophores and gill leaves are translucent brown with dull white mottling. It grows to about 11 mm in length.

This species has previously been known the Forum as Trapania sp. 3.

• Gosliner, T.M. & Fahey, S.H. (2008) Systematics of Trapania (Mollusca: Nudibranchia: Goniodorididae) with descriptions of 16 new species Systematics and Biodiversity, 6 (1): 53-98.

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