Hypselodoris maculosa from Sri Lanka

September 27, 2007
From: Anouk Houben

I found these nudibranch on the same divesite off the South coast of Sri Lanka. Although the couple of them is a lot brighter in colour, their colour pattern is identical to the single snail. Could they be Hypselodoris maculosa, without the maculae among the dorsal lines?

Locality: Prinz Heinrich Patch, Weligama, 16 m, Sri Lanka, Indian Ocean, February/April 2007, rock formations. Length: 3 cm. Photographer: Anouk Houben.

Best regards,
Anouk

nashiman@lankacom.net

Houben, A., 2007 (Sep 27) Hypselodoris maculosa from Sri Lanka. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/20814

Dear Anouk,

Yes this is H. maculosa. Usually the white spots are restricted to the anterior and posterior parts of the mantle as in your animals, which are very similar in colour to an animal on the Fact Sheet which I photographed in Tanzania in the western Indian Ocean.

It is very interesting to get such good photos of animals from Sri Lanka. I hope this message and your earlier one [#20757] are just the start of many mesages from Sri Lanka. What is particularly interesting about the Sri Lankan fauna is that some of the earliest descriptions of nudibranchs from the Indo-West Pacific were from animals collected and described by Edward Kelaart from Ceylon [Sri Lanka] in the second half of the 1800s. Kelaart was the Doctor in charge of the British colonial troops in Ceylon at that time and gave as his justification for studying nudibranchs was that:
"there is nothing like the careful study of God's works to divert the mind from the contemplation of diseased organic bodies, especially in this unhealthy and monotonous station....."

The importance of Kelaart's names is that because they are some the earliest names, we need to know which species they apply to as they may be older than names currently in use in other parts of the Indo-West Pacific.

Best wishes,
Bill Rudman

Rudman, W.B., 2007 (Sep 27). Comment on Hypselodoris maculosa from Sri Lanka by Anouk Houben. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/20814

Factsheet

Hypselodoris maculosa

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