Chromodoris luteopunctata & C. rodomaculata

January 28, 2001
From: Angel Valdes

Dear Bill,
I was going through my slides this morning and I found this one that I think is relevant for the comments I sent earlier about the blue chromdorids. This animal, collected from the Canary Islands, was described as a new species by Ortea & Valdés (1992), who named it Chromodoris rodomaculata. It was thought to be different from Chromodoris luteorosea and C. luteopunctata by the presence of large, yellow, broken spots on the dorsum. I took a look the original description not very long ago and I concluded that this species is in fact a color variation of C. luteopunctata. I saw more pictures of this species from the Canary Islands and they always have the pattern with broken spots. But you can also see the rhinophores with the small blue and white dots and the pale gill with white spots. The anatomy is also identical to that of C. luteopunctata. The synonymy between these two taxa has not been published yet.

Ortea, J. & Valdés, A. (1992). Descripción de una nueva especie de Chromodoris Alder y Hancock, 1855 (Mollusca: Nudibranchia) de las Islas Canarias. Estudio comparado con otras especies atlánticas del grupo cromático "luteorosea". Revista de la Academia canaria de Ciencias, 3: 69-85.

All the best,
Angel

avaldes@CalAcademy.org

Valdes, A., 2001 (Jan 28) Chromodoris luteopunctata & C. rodomaculata. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/3654

Thanks Angel,
Bill Rudman

Rudman, W.B., 2001 (Jan 28). Comment on Chromodoris luteopunctata & C. rodomaculata by Angel Valdes. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/3654

Factsheet

Chromodoris rodomaculata