Discodoris confusa
Ballesteros, Llera & Ortea, 1985

Order: NUDIBRANCHIA
Suborder: DORIDINA
Family: Dorididae

DISTRIBUTION

Warm water Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea

PHOTO

Locality: Bodrum, 10, Turkey, Aegean Sea, 19 August 2005, Rocky area. Length: 5 cm. Photographer: Patrice Francour.

Large pale brown dorid with scattered with irregularly shaped brown patches of varying intensity, some very dark brown almost black. There can allso be irregular white patches as well. This species was for some time considered identical to the Indo-West pacific D. lilacina but is now considered a distinct species. The mantle skirt is relative wide but relatively thin, lacking a distinct muscle layer. There are relatively elongate papillae scattered over the mantle, but they spaced from one another about a diameter apart. Another similar species from the Mediterranean, Discodoris maculosa Bergh, 1877, is said to differ on details of the reproductive system and in the shape and arrangement of the mantle papillae, which in D. maculosa and cone-shaped - with a rounded tip - and closely packed all over the dorsal surface.

Originally described from the Canary Islands, it will probably prove to have a wider distribution in the warm water eastern Atlantic - Mediterranean region. it is however confused in the published records with D. lilacina and D. maculosa.

• Ballesteros, M., Llera, E.M., Ortea, J.A. (1985) Revision de los Doridacea (Mollusca: Opisthobranchia) del Atlantico Nordeste atribuibles al complejo maculosa-fragilis. Bolletino Malacologico, 20: 227-257.

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