Hypselodoris bullockii ( Collingwood, 1881 )

Tibiriçá, Yara, Pola, Marta & Cervera, Juan Lucas, 2017, Astonishing diversity revealed: an annotated and illustrated inventory of Nudipleura (Gastropoda: Heterobranchia) from Mozambique, Zootaxa 4359 (1), pp. 1-133 : 32

Hypselodoris bullockii ( Collingwood, 1881)

( Figures 7 H , 9 A–D )

Material examined. Six specimens. MB28-004828, 5 spcs., POA, 0 8 May 2014, 40m, 34mm; MHN-YT1671, NSS, 16 Feb. 2017, 25m, 49mm.

Habitats. Subtropical tidal reefs and tropical coral reefs.

Occurrences. Ponta do Ouro.

Geographic distribution. Indo-west, central Pacific. Marshall Islands, Japan, New Caledonia (Gosliner et al. 2008), Australia ( Debelius 1996; Gosliner et al. 2008), Taiwan, Indonesia, the Philippines (Gosliner et al. 2008), Thailand ( Mehrotra & Scott 2015), Christmas Island, Indonesia, Maldives ( Debelius 1996) and Mozambique ( King & Fraser 2014).

Remarks. Published details of the morphology of H. bullockii are relatively poor and in need of further study ( Gosliner & Johnson 1999). Gosliner et al. (2015) consider H. bullockii to be restricted to the Pacific Ocean and note that records from the Indian Ocean refer to Thorunna punicea ( Rudman, 1995) . Thus, to confirm the generic placement of our material, we examined the radula of one specimen (MB28-004828, Fig. 9 ). Despite some external similarities between Thorunna and Hypselodoris , the radular teeth of these two genera are distinctive ( Rudman 1990). The radula formula of the examined specimen was 57x 47.0.47 ( Fig. 9 A ). Central teeth are absent ( Fig. 9 B ), the innermost teeth bear two to three pointed denticles of different size on the inner and four on the outer sides ( Fig. 9 C ). The median lateral teeth bear 3-5 denticles including one that is bicuspid ( Fig. 9 D ). This confirms that this species belongs to the genus Hypselodoris . Nevertheless, additional studies are needed to verify the intraspecific variability of this species.

Figures

FIGURE 7. A, Goniobranchus kitae (MB28-004868). B, Goniobranchus lekker (MB28-004435). C, Goniobranchus pruna (MB28-004571). D, Goniobranchus tennentanus (MB28-004664). E–F Goniobranchus cf. tinctorius (MB28-004870 and MB28-004872, respectively). G, Goniobranchus verrieri (MB28-004657). H, Hypselodoris bullockii (MB28-004828). I–J, Hypselodoris carnea (MHN-YT358, MB28-004477, ZMBN117032 and MHN-YT471, respectively). K, Hypselodoris emma (MB28-004548).L, Hypselodoris fucata (MB28-004791).

FIGURE 9. Hypselodoris bullockii (MB28-004828), SEMs of radula. A, general view of the radula. B, innermost teeth of anterior region.C, innermost teeth of posterior region showing inner part of the tooth. D, outermost teeth.