Godiva quadricolor (Barnard, 1927)

Salvador, Xavier, Fernández-Vilert, Robert & Moles, Juan, 2022, Sea slug night fever: 39 new records of elusive heterobranchs in the western Mediterranean (Mollusca: Gastropoda), Journal of Natural History 56 (5 - 8), pp. 265-310 : 285

Godiva quadricolor (Barnard, 1927)

( Figure 4 (d))

Material examined

Cala Maset caves, Sant Feliu de Guíxols ( Spain), 41°47 ʹ 10.5”N, 3°2 ʹ 44.6”E, 31 December 2017, 2 m depth, 1 spc ., L = 10 mm; 5 January 2018, 1.3 m depth, 1 spc., adult, L = 25 mm; 22 January 2018, 1.3 m depth, 1 spc., adult, L = 25 mm; 29 January 2018, 1.3 m depth, 1 spc., adult, L = 25 mm; Le Ponton, Étang de Thau , Sète ( France), 43°25 ʹ 28.5”N, 3°42 ʹ E, 8 April 2017, 1 m depth, 5 spc ., adults and egg masses, L = 20–40 mm; 20 May 2018, 1 m depth, 4 spc., juveniles, adults and egg masses, L = 5–30 mm.

External morphology

Body elongate, narrow, background colour light orange with whitish-blue electric marks. Oral tentacles present a whitish blue line connecting apical part with base of rhinophores. Rhinophores conical, slightly annulated, whitish-yellow apically. Cerata abundant, smooth, base red, tops orange, blue and yellow.

Ecology

This species has a very broad diet ( Betti et al. 2015), and is commonly found eating anemones (e.g. the genera Anemonia and Aiptasia ), worms (e.g. Sabella ), and other heterobranchs such as Spurilla neapolitana (Delle Chiaje, 1841) .

Distribution

This is an invasive species originally from South Africa and the Pacific Sea [e.g. Australia ( Nimbs and Smith 2017), Hawaii ( Gosliner 1980), now found in Italy, France, the Mediterranean Spanish coast: Andalucía ( Zenetos et al. 2016; Gerovasileiou et al. 2017) and Catalonia (this study).

Remarks

This species is a large facelinid with a very characteristic colour pattern, making it difficult to misidentify. In the Étang de Thau, France, the species is very abundant during spring.]

Family PISEINOTECIDAE Edmunds, 1970

Genus Piseinotecus Er. Marcus, 1955

Figures

Figure 4. Photographs of live Nudibranchia species: (a) The pelagic Phylliroe cf. bucephala. (b) Amphorina andra surrounded by hydrozoans of the genus Sertularella. (c) Eubranchus prietoi on the hydrozoan Kirchenpaueria halecioides. (d) The alien Godiva quadricolor. (e) Three specimens of Piseinotecus soussi and their egg masses. (f) Piseinotecus sphaeriferus on top of the hydrozoan Obelia sp. (g) Tenellia adspersa. (h) Trinchesia cuanensis on top of the hydrozoan Sertularella sp.