Platydoris galbanus
Burn, 1958

Order: NUDIBRANCHIA
Suborder: DORIDINA
Family: Dorididae

DISTRIBUTION

Southeastern Australia. Reported from Victoria, and now from mid New South Wales.

PHOTO

Wollongong, intertidal. Photo: Kirsten Benkendorff.

The only published information on this species is the original description which I summarise below. The accompanying photo, from New South Wales, is tentatively identified as this species.

"Body small, length 40mm, breadth 24 mm. Body-shape broadly elliptic, rather flat. Mantle leathery to the touch, minutely granular all over; expanded well beyond the foot. It has 5 very large and bushy quadripinnate gills, with the anus protruding between the rear pair. The edge of the gill cavity is folded into 5 broad, indistinct valves. The margin of the rhinophore sheaths are crenulate. The rhinophores are relatively small, the perfoliate club apparently narrower than the stalk, with 10 steeply-angled laminae. The oral tentacles are digitiform anfd the head is rounded. Foot narrow, grooved anteriorly, not extending beyond posterior margin of mantle. Body colour yellow, of a very bright hue; mantle with a few medium-sized white spots. Rhinophores and branchiae chocolate-brown. Radula formula 18 x 30.0.30 with all teeth hamate or hookshaped and non denticulate.

Known from two specimens collected under a rock at Phillip Island in Jan 1957." [summarised from Burn, 1958]

Reference:
• Burn, R.F. (1958). Further Victorian opisthobranchia. Journal of the malacological Society of Australia, 2: 20-36

Authorship details
Rudman, W.B., 2003 (July 11) Platydoris galbanus Burn, 1958. [In] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/factsheet/platygal

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