Mexichromis tura
(Marcus & Marcus, 1967)

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

DISTRIBUTION

Pacific coast of Central America [Sonora, Mexico to Panama Canal zone].

PHOTO

Playa Mismaloya, Bahia de Banderas, Jalisco, approx 40 feet [Pacific coast of Mexico]. Length 10 mm. April 6th, 2002. Photo: Alicia Hermosillo.

The mantle is a dark purplish black with small bright orange spots scattered all over. There are multiple colour bands around the mantle margin. Right at the edge there is a bright orange band, followed by one of  purplish black. Inside that is one of milky bluish white, then another of purplish black, and then a broken band of milky yellow. The milky yellow and milky bluish white bands are somewhat irregular, almost lumpy in appearance, and around the anterior end of the mantle they almost merge into one band.  The body and foot is deep purplish black with a median orange band down the posterior part of the foot. The rhinophores are deep purplish black and the simple gills are translucent colourless with a purplish tip. It grows to at least 10 mm in length.

It is one of a group of yellow spotted blue chromodorids from the eastern Pacific, including Hypselodoris lapislazuli, H. ghiselini, H. californiensis, H. agassizii, and Chromodoris spohni. However its closest similarity is to Mexichromis antonii, which has the same 5-banded mantle margin, with the inner 'milky' coloured almost merging anteriorly and the colourless gills with purple tips.

• Bertsch, H. & Ferreira, A.J. (1974) Four new species of nudibranchs from tropical west America. The Veliger 16(4): 343-353.
• Bertsch, H. (1977) The Chromodoridinae nudibranchs from the Pacific coast of America. Part I. Investigative methods and supra-specific taxomony. The Veliger, 20(2): 107-118.
• Bertsch, H. (1978) The Chromodoridinae nudibranchs from the Pacific coast of America. Part III. The Genera Chromolaichma and Mexichromis. The Veliger, 21(1): 70-86.
• Camacho-Garcia, Y., Gosliner, T. M., and Valdés, A. (2005)  Field Guide to the Sea Slugs of tropical Eastern Pacific. San Francisco, California Academy of Sciences.  1-129.
•  Marcus, Er. & Marcus, Ev (1967) American opisthobranch mollusks. Part 1, Tropical American opisthobranchs. Studies Tropical Oceanography, Miami 6(1-2): 1-137. (Figs 1-150, Pl.1, figs 1-9)
• Rudman, W.B. (1984) The Chromodorididae (Opisthobranchia: Mollusca) of the Indo-West Pacific: a review of the genera. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 81: 115-273.

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