Hostname: page-component-788cddb947-pt5lt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-10-11T17:59:23.188Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A new species of Tritonia (Opisthobranchia: Nudibranchia: Tritoniidae) from the tropical South Atlantic Ocean

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2013

Felipe de Vasconcelos Silva*
Affiliation:
LIMCE—Laboratório de Invertebrados Marinhos do Ceará, Universidade Federal do Ceará, Centro de Ciências, Departamento de Biologia, Bloco 909—Campus do Pici, CEP. 60455-970 Fortaleza—Ceará—Brasil
Victor Manuel De Azevedo
Affiliation:
LIMCE—Laboratório de Invertebrados Marinhos do Ceará, Universidade Federal do Ceará, Centro de Ciências, Departamento de Biologia, Bloco 909—Campus do Pici, CEP. 60455-970 Fortaleza—Ceará—Brasil
Helena Matthews-Cascon
Affiliation:
LIMCE—Laboratório de Invertebrados Marinhos do Ceará, Universidade Federal do Ceará, Centro de Ciências, Departamento de Biologia, Bloco 909—Campus do Pici, CEP. 60455-970 Fortaleza—Ceará—Brasil
*
Correspondence should be addressed to: F.V. Silva, LIMCE—Laboratório de Invertebrados Marinhos do Ceará, Universidade Federal do Ceará, Centro de Ciências, Departamento de Biologia, Bloco 909—Campus do Pici, CEP. 60455-970 Fortaleza—Ceará—Brasil email: leafyn@yahoo.com.br

Abstract

A new species of the family Tritoniidae is described from the tropical South Atlantic Ocean. The animal was found off north-east Brazil. Tritonia khaleesi sp. nov. is up to 12 mm long, with a slender white body, of which the notum is covered with one broad white band extending from between the eyes and veil to the tail; veil with 4 velar appendages; retractable white rhinophores; rhinophoral sheath with fleshy extension; seven pairs of branchial plumes; the anus is located between the 3rd and 4th gills on the right side, and the genital opening is under the 2nd gill. Internally, T. khaleesi sp. nov. is distinguished from other tritoniids by jaws with 10–14 rows of denticles on the inner lips, absence of stomach plates and the radular formula 32 × 2–5.1.1.1.2–5 teeth. Tritonia khaleesi sp. nov. is the only Tritonia that possesses a unicuspid rachidian tooth as an adult.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Ballesteros, M. and Avila, C. (2006) A new tritoniid species (Mollusca: Opisthobranchia) from Bouvet Island. Polar Biology 29, 128136.Google Scholar
Behrens, D. W. & Hermosillo, A. (2005) Eastern Pacific Nudibranchs. 1st edn.Gig Harbor, WA: Sea Challengers Natural History Books.Google Scholar
Bertsch, H., Valdés, A. and Gosliner, T.M. (2009) A new species of tritoniid nudibranch, the first found feeding on a zoanthid anthozoan, with a preliminary phylogeny of the Tritoniidae. Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences 60, 431446.Google Scholar
Gosliner, T.M. and Ghiselin, M.T. (1987) A new species of Tritonia (Opisthobranchia: Gastropoda) from the Caribbean Sea. Bulletin of Marine Science 40, 428436.Google Scholar
Marcus, Er. (1961) Opisthobranchia from North Carolina. Journal of the Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society 77, 141151.Google Scholar
Marcus, Ev. (1983) The Western Atlantic Tritoniidae. Boletim de Zoologia da Universidade de São Paulo 6, 177214.Google Scholar
Odhner, N.H. (1936) Nudibranchia Dendronotacea. A revision of the System. Melanges Paul Pelseneer. Mémoires du Musée Royale d'Histoire Naturelle de Belgique 3, 10571128.Google Scholar
Odhner, N.H. (1963) On the Taxonomy of the Family Tritoniidae (Mollusca: Opisthobranchia). Veliger 6, 4862.Google Scholar
Pola, M. and Gosliner, T.M. (2010) The first molecular phylogeny of cladobranchian opisthobranchs (Mollusca, Gastropoda, Nudibranchia). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 56, 931941.Google Scholar
Schrödl, M. (2003) Sea slugs of southern South America—Systematics, biogeography and biology of Chilean and Magellanic Nudipleura (Mollusca: Opisthobranchia). 1st edn.Hackenheim: ConchBooks.Google Scholar
Silva, F.V., Meirelles, C.A.O. and Matthews-Cascon, H. (2013) A new species of Marionia (Opisthobranchia: Nudibranchia: Tritoniidae) from the tropical South Atlantic Ocean. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 93, 16171624.Google Scholar
Smith, V.G. and Gosliner, T.M. (2003) A new species of Tritonia from Okinawa (Mollusca: Nudibranchia), and its association with a gorgonian octocoral. Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences 54, 255278.Google Scholar
Valdés, Á., Hamann, J., Behrens, D.W. and DuPont, A. (2006) Caribbean sea slugs. A field guide to the opisthobranch mollusks from the tropical northwestern Atlantic. 1st edn.Gig Harbor, WA: Sea Challengers Natural History Books.Google Scholar
Wägele, H. (1995) On the morphology and taxonomy of the Antarctic species of Tritonia Cuvier, 1897 (Dendronotoidea, Nudibranchia). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 113, 2146.Google Scholar
Willan, R.C. (1988) The taxonomy of two host-specific, cryptic dendronotoid nudibranch species (Mollusca: Gastropoda) from Australia including a new species description. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 94, 3963.CrossRefGoogle Scholar