Hypselodoris tricolor or H. midatlantica

February 15, 2001
From: Juan Lucas Cervera

Dear Bill,
This species is called by other authors (including me) Hypselodoris midatlantica Gosliner, 1990. Gosliner and Johnson's paper (1999) on the genus Hypselodoris supply a good discussion about the controversy of both names.

• Gosliner, T.M. & Johnson, R.F. (1999) Phylogeny of Hypselodoris (Nudibranchia: Chromodorididae) with a review of the monophyletic clade of Indo-Pacific species, including descriptions of twelve new species. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 125: 1-114.

Cheers.
Lucas.

lucas.cervera@uca.es

Cervera, J.L., 2001 (Feb 15) Hypselodoris tricolor or H. midatlantica. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/3807

Thanks Lucas,
... and just when I was starting to feel confident about these blue chromodorids.

For those of you not familiar with the situation, there is one group who thinks they can identify Cantraine's Doris tricolor, and another group which consider that the original description is so poor that the name should be considered unidentifiable and so rejected. In an attempt to clarify the situation Ortea et al (1996) chose a neotype for Cantraine's Doris tricolor but Gosliner and others consider the specimen chosen does not accurately match the few features Cantraine mentioned in his inadequate description and urge that the neotype designation should be set aside. There is no way to resolve this dispute by continued debate or learned arguments. It is a good example of where the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature should be asked to resolve the impasse. All I can do is urge the parties involved to prepare a case and submit it to the Commission. In the long run it does not really matter which solution they accept. The important point is that a solution should be reached. The blue chromodorids in the Mediterranean are an extremely interesting group biologically, but if the taxonomists can't decide which names to use, then taxonomists become the impediment to further scientific discovery and the ecologists and natural products chemists etc are not going to have a very high opinion of us.
Bill Rudman

Rudman, W.B., 2001 (Feb 15). Comment on Hypselodoris tricolor or H. midatlantica by Juan Lucas Cervera. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/3807

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Hypselodoris tricolor

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