Cuthona barbadiana Edmunds & Just, 1983 ( Fig. 4K )

Delgado, Marlon, Freire, Fúlvio Aurélio de Morais, Meirelles, Carlos Augusto Oliveira de, Padula, Vinicius, Bahia, Juliana & Brandão, Simone Nunes, 2022, Sea slugs (Gastropoda: Heterobranchia) from Rio Grande do Norte, Northeastern Brazil, Papéis Avulsos de Zoologia 62, pp. 1-26 : 20

41. Cuthona barbadiana Edmunds & Just, 1983 ( Fig. 4K)

Material examined: Praia de Pirambúzios, Nísia Floresta, 01.XII.2013, one specimen, 5 mm (body length), leg. M. Delgado ( GEEFAA 257).

Description: Translucent, predominantly grayish background coloration, presenting a network of opaque white lines starting from the tail in a single dorsal line, entering the notum in the form of a complex network, bordering the pericardium, passing between the rhinophores and rising halfway up. In the head, the line bifurcates into two lateral and thin lines, reaching the middle of the oral tentacles, where it is interrupted by a medial ring, thick and opaque in purple tone, in the most terminal portion the white band continues to fill the tentacle until the far end. The rhinophores have a whitish base interrupted by a medial ring, thick and opaque in the shade of purple and then continue the white tone to the end. Cerata are dark brown in the insertion and base, changing to light brown in the medial portion, cut by a network of thin longitudinal lines in white color and whitish-colored cnidosacs. In the anterior portion, there is a very prominent rounded head with black eyes arranged laterally, below the rhinophores, elongated and smooth oral tentacles, set at a horizontal angle, slightly sloping, a pair of smooth and elongated rhinophores, with the base slightly thicker than the edges. In the medial portion, cerata are oblong with a very thick medial portion and a very narrow insertion. The muscular foot is narrow, in the anterior portion it is rounded, forming two small tentacles and in the posterior portion it thins, turning into a long translucent tail.

Geographic distribution: Western Atlantic: Barbados, Bahamas, Brazil (Ceará and Rio Grande do Norte – present study) ( Valdés et al., 2006; Galvão-Filho et al., 2015).

Remarks: This is the second record of C. barbadiana from Brazil.The species was recently recorded by Galvão-Filho et al. (2015) based on material collected in Ceará, northeastern Brazil.

Figures

Figure 4. Heterobranch sea slugs from Rio Grande do Norte. (A) Doris kyolis (6 mm – GEEFAA 340); (B) Doris sp. (8 mm – GEEFAA 347); (C) Doto chica (5 mm – GEEFAA 315); (D) Doto divae (2 mm – GEEFAA 285); (E) Phidiana lynceus (27 mm – MZSP 97035);(F) Cratena minor (18 mm – GEEFAA 334); (G) Berghia creutzbergi (13 mm – GEEFAA 1306); (H) Berghia rissodominguezi (3 mm – GEEFAA 289); (I) Spurilla braziliana (13 mm – MZSP 97034); (J) Glaucus atlanticus (35 mm – phot. reg.);(K) Cuthonabarbadiana (5 mm – GEEFAA 257).