Ceratosoma miamiranum
(Bergh, 1875)

Order: NUDIBRANCHIA
Suborder: DORIDINA
Superfamily: EUDORIDOIDEA
Family: Chromodorididae

DISTRIBUTION

Indo-West Pacific

PHOTO

UPPER RIGHT: Underside showing characteristic colour pattern. Koumac Beach (=Baie de Ouanap), near Koumac, New Caledonia, 20°34'S, 164°16'E, Mixed soft and hard substrate, grassbeds, algae, 27 October 1993, 1 specimen (70mm long live). LOWER RIGHT: Dorsal view of same animal.
LOWER LEFT: Inner Makatumbe Is, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Dec 23 1973.
PHOTOS: Bill Rudman.

Note added 4 July 2007: The name is changed today from C. miamirana to C. miamiranum - see message #20101.

Formerly better known as Orodoris miamirana Bergh, 1875 and Fracassa tuberculosa Eliot, 1904, this species has recently been placed in the chromodorid genus Ceratosoma.

It has a relatively hard mantle with a series of rounded lobes around the edge. Smaller specimens have many compound tubercles and usually there is a median longitudinal ridge and a series of ridges running out from the longitudinal ridge to the mantle edge. As specimens grow in size these ridges can partially disappear. In smaller specimens the background colour can be a pale bluish-green with deeper green ridges, or the whole background can be a dark greenish-brown or reddish brown. Scattered all over are low rounded cream coloured pustules and some bright blue spots. Each of the blue spots is ringed with red. In larger specimens, the colour pattern can be much duller.

In all specimens I have seen from both East Africa and the western Pacific, the underside of the mantle has a very characteristic pattern. The background colour is bluish or greenish white and there is a reticulate pattern of green. Near the junction of the body and the mantle there is a ring of bright blue spots, each ringed with red. 

• Valdes, A. & Gosliner, T. (1999) Reassessment of the systematic status of Miamira Bergh, 1875 and Orodoris Bergh, 1875 Nudibranchia; Chromodorididae) in light of phylogenetic analysis. Journal of Molluscan Studies, 65: 33-45.

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