Goniobranchus bombayanus (Winckworth, 1946)

Nithyanandan, Manickam, Al-Kandari, Manal & Mantha, Gopikrishna, 2021, New records of nudibranchs and a cephalaspid from Kuwait, northwestern Arabian Gulf (Mollusca, Heterobranchia), ZooKeys 1048, pp. 91-107 : 91

Goniobranchus bombayanus (Winckworth, 1946)

Figure 3

Glossodoris bombayana Winckworth, 1946: 155-156, fig. 1 (Bombay, India).

Goniobranchus naiki Valdés, Mollo & Ortea, 1999: 468-471, fig. 1 (Mandapam, southern India); Gosliner et al. 2015: 228, one figure.

Photographic record.

SAASC, Al-Khiran, 23 March 2013, one individual photographed at 5 m depth on a concrete wall adjacent to tidal gates, Don Christopher Pereira.

Description.

The individual photographed has a translucent white body with conspicuous deep purple spots scattered over the dorsum (Fig. 3 ). The foot is covered by the dorsum. On the mantle margin, yellow spots are arranged in a row merging with the purple spots. These yellow spots appear as a tubercle projecting from the centre of few purple spot on the dorsum and are confluent with purple spots in the margin. Rhinophores and gills bear rows of faint opaque white spots.

Distribution.

Known only from Mandapam, southern India ( Valdés et al. 1999), Mumbai and Gulf of Kutch, northwestern India ( Winckworth 1946; Apte and Desai 2017), and Kuwait (this study).

Remarks.

Johnson and Gosliner (2012), in considering the monophyletic nature of the genus Chromodoris , suggested a revision in the classification by moving some Indo-Pacific chromodorids to the genus Goniobranchus . According to WoRMS (2021) Goniobranchus naiki Valdez, Mollo & Ortea, 1999 from Mandapam, southern India is a junior synonym of G. bombayanus (Winckworth, 1946). In G. naiki , Valdés et al. (1999) and Gosliner et al. (2015) indicated the occurrence of translucent white spots on the dorsum; in the individual recorded during this study only faint opaque spots were observed (Fig. 3 ). In G. bombayanus the posterior portion of the foot extends beyond the mantle as a white tail with no dark spots ( Winckworth 1946), which is also visible in the photographed individual (Fig. 3 , arrowed). A new record to Kuwait and the APG.

Figures

Figure 3. Goniobranchus bombayanus (Winckworth, 1946) (arrow indicates the white foot with no spots or markings). Photograph Don Christopher Pereira.