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Nembrotha cf. guttata is black or red with scattered orange/red pustules. Nembrotha guttata was described by Nathalie Yonow from the Maldives with the rhinophore pockets black with an orange edge, almost all Nembrotha cf. guttata specimens from the Philippines have a white patch at the base of each rhinophore pocket. Pretty similar are: Nembrotha livingstonei which has a distinctive white cross-like marking between the rhinophores. Nembrotha sp. 02 which has blue rhinophores and gills, Nembrotha sp. 04 which has black rhinophore pockets with an orange edge, and lacks the white patch at the base of each rhinophore pocket, Nembrotha sp. 08 which differs by the bright blue margin of the foot, by greenish pustules with red caps, and by blue/green gills The recent paper Pola, M., Cervera, J.L. and Gosliner, T.M. 2008. Revision of the Indo-Pacific genus Nembrotha (Nudibranchia: Dorididae: Polyceridae), with description of two new species. Scientia Marina 72(1): 145-183 proposes to replace Nembrotha guttata Yonow, 1993 with Nembrotha yonowae Goethel & Debelius, 1992, considering them both to be the same. Bill Rudman discusses the possible synonymy at Bill Rudman's Sea-Slug Forum I quote: ..."it seems premature to synonymise that name and N. guttata as they might both turn out to be valid species." The description of Nembrotha yonowae was published in a German non-scientific journal: Goethel, H. and H. Debelius. – 1992. Nacktschnecken der Maldiven, mit der Beschreibung einer neuen Art. DATZ (Die Aquarien und Terrarienzeitschrift), 1992(8): 512-519. This text is almost unavailable and in German! Note added on 22 December 2011: the text is online at http://www.datz.de/Artikel.dll/Nembrotha-yonowae-1992-8_NjM3NDk.PDF I wonder how somedody can identify a specimen as Nembrotha yonowae, if this decription is so poor- and there are many red spotted species... Let me quote Pola et al 2008: "We considered that since there are no specimens of N. yonowae to examine, the type locality of both species is the same and the external description is identical, so N. guttata and N. yonowae are synonyms." and "Further morphological and molecular studies need to be done to fully resolve these issues." In the Mediterraneean Sea are many blue chromodorids with white longitunidal lines, it was imposible to identify the species Hypselodoris tricolor (Cantraine, 1835) In 1990 Gosliner solved this problem and published a desription of Hypselodoris midatlantica Many more pictures of Nembrotha cf. guttata , - most possibly several species -, from the Western Pacific ocean are at the Mediterranean Slug Site! More informations on Nembrotha cf. guttata are at Bill Rudman's Sea-Slug Forum! |
