Chromodoris tennentana (Kelaart, 1859)

Yonow, Nathalie, 2012, Opisthobranchs from the western Indian Ocean, with descriptions of two new species and ten new records (Mollusca, Gastropoda), ZooKeys 197, pp. 1-130 : 33-34

Chromodoris tennentana (Kelaart, 1859) Fig. 11Plate 46

Doris tennentana Kelaart, 1858: 268 (Sri Lanka).

Chromodoris vicina Eliot, 1904a: 392 (Zanzibar); Edmunds 1971: 372, fig. 16, pl. 1A (Tanzania).

non Chromodoris vicina . - Gosliner 1987: 75, fig. 109 (South Africa) (= Chromodoris cavae Eliot).

Chromodoris tennentana . - Rudman, 1987: 364, figs. 23, 32, 35, 36 (Tanzania); Yonow et al. 2002: 855, fig. 13a (Chagos); Debelius and Kuiter 2007: 151 (South Africa); Richmond 2011: 280 (East Africa).

Material.

Seychelles: 8 × 5 mm pres. ( PK–BB), Lilôt, NW Mahé, 17 m depth on algal-encrusted rock, 26 April 1992, leg. P Kemp (mantle glands obvious on preserved specimen). - Madagascar: photos of one juvenile, 10 mm in length, Nosy Bé, October 2007, J Hinterkircher.

Description.

The Seychelles specimen has the typical colour pattern: a central patchy ochre-brown dorsum with ocellated violet spots, a creamy sub-marginal band with orange and purple spots, a blue-violet margin, and ochre rhinophores and gills. The specimen preserved in formaldehyde is translucent, with a rosy-orange and black gut. The flat translucent mantle skirt is extended, white mantle glands visible in a band along the edge: most are irregular in shape, some are stellate (Fig. 11A). Gills translucent, flat, and very simply pinnate; oral tentacles digitiform (Fig. 11B). The similarities and differences between this species and Chromodoris cavae , removed from synonymy of Chromodoris tennentana , are discussed under that species (see p. 36).