Trapania vitta
Gosliner & Fahey, 2008

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

DISTRIBUTION

Known from Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and southern
Japan.

PHOTO

Upper: CASIZ 172861, Bali, Indonesia, 3 mm. Photo: T. Gosliner. Lower: CASIZ 172861. Radular morphology. Scale =10 µm. [From Gosliner & Fahey 2008: Fig 20C].

This species is described as having a white body, including white tentacular anterior foot corners and white dorso-lateral processes. The oral tentacles have a white base but are primarily orange, the gills are white with orange edging on the dorsal side, and the rhinophores clubs are similarly white with orange at the tip and down the dorsal surface. The posterior tip of the foot is described as having "an occasional orange pigment spot". The largest animals examined by Gosliner & Fahey were 5 mm long alive.

Gosliner & Fahey describe the radular morphology of T. vitta as closely resembling that of  T. aurata Rudman, 1987 from Hong Kong "but the outermost denticle of T. aurata is longer with a base that extends the entire width of the tooth ". I don't know what they mean by that, as when I compare SEM photos of T. aurata from both Hong Kong [message #21436] and New Caledonia [message #21437 ] I can see no real difference.

Some animals previously identified on the Forum as T. cf aurata [message #313] and some identified as T. aurata [#17725, #1569] appear to match the colour pattern of T. vitta. See Trapania cf. aurata for animals with slightly different colour pattern, which may or may not be variants of this species. See also discussion [#21438 ] concerning the similarly coloured T. aurata, and message #9599 concerning Trapania sp. 8.

  • 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
Authorship details
Rudman, W.B., 2008 (March 10) Trapania vitta Gosliner & Fahey, 2008. [In] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/factsheet/trapvitt

Related messages

  1. Trapania vitta? from sthn Queensland
    From: Gary Cobb, March 18, 2008
  2. Trapania vitta? from the Philippines
    From: Erwin Koehler, March 14, 2008
  3. Trapania aurata in East Timor
    From: Brian Francisco, September 4, 2006
  4. Trapania aurata from Vanuatu
    From: Vinka Stenhouse, December 12, 1999
  5. Trapania aurata? from Bali
    From: Michael Miller , November 17, 1998

Show factsheet and all related messages