Opisthobranchs

The molluscan fauna of Isla del Coco has recently been well documented, but the heterobranch sea slugs, traditionally called "opisthobranchs " , remain poorly known. We report 13 new records, increasing the total to 40 species. Of the 13 newly discovered species, the following species had not been previously recorded along the Pacific Costa Rican mainland: Berthella californica (Dall, 1900), Peltodoris rubra (Bergh, 1905), Dendrodoris albobrunnea Allan, 1933, Doriopsilla cf. spaldingi valdés & Behrens, 1998, Glaucus cf. marginatus (Reinhardt & Bergh, 1864), and Flabellina sp. Additionally, we report Peltodoris rubra, previously known from the Indo-Pacific, for the first time in the Eastern Tropical Pacific. Rev. Biol. Trop. 64 (Suppl. 1): S205-S219. Epub 2016 Febrary 01.

This is the first paper describing the heterobranch fauna of the coasts of Iran. A total of 25 species belonging to 14 families is recorded from the Iranian coasts of the Gulf of Oman. Except for Chromodoris annulata, the remainder are all new records for the area. The families Chromodorididae and Aplysiidae have the highest diversity in the Gulf of Oman at present. A preliminary checklist of heterobranchs occurring in Iran is provided, based on current and literature records.

The nudibranch gastropod genus Aeolidiella Bergh, 1867 has been found to be polyphyletic. It holds an unnamed clade that was named Bulbaeolidia Carmona, Pola, Gosliner & Cervera, 2013. This genus is composed by four species, two of them unnamed: Bulbae-olidia alba, from Japan, Malaysia and Philippines, Bulbaeolidia japonica, from Japan, Bul-baeolidia sp. B, from Hawaii, and Bulbaeolidia sp. A, from Brazil. Bulbaeolidia was described in the context of a molecular phylogeny, thus, no " taxonomic action " regarding to the unnamed species was taken, leaving the work incomplete, and the 50 % of the members of Bulbaeolidia undescribed. In this paper we describe the Western Atlantic member of the genus Bulbaeolidia and a Pacific species from Galapagos, both cryptic with Bul-baeolidia alba (Risbec, 1929).

The coast of northern Chile has been sparsely studied in regards to its invertebrate fauna, with just a few works reviewing the distribution of local mollusks. This work presents a survey of the shallow water heterobranch sea slugs currently occurring around the port of Caldera (27 S), in the Regió n de Atacama, northern Chile.

Among the 373 species of opisthobranchs reported from India, 92 are from Lakshadweep.  This paper documents 11 species of opisthobranch fauna from Lakshadweep Islands, classified under the families Haminoeidae, Colpodaspididae, Volvatellidae, Dendrodorididae, Chromodorididae, Goniodorididae, Embletoniidae, and Tergipedidae, of which five are new records to India.  Goniobranchus rufomaculatus and Volvatella ventricosa are reported for the first time from the western Indian Ocean.

The nudibranch Flabellina dana Millen and Hamann, 2006 is reported from two localities in the northeastern Brazilian coast. These are the first records of this species, previously recorded from localities in the Bahamas and the Caribbean Sea, in South Atlantic Ocean, extending its known geographic distribution more than 3500 km southward.

Os nudibrânquios são dos animais mais coloridos e de formas mais extravagantes que podemos encontrar nas nossas águas. No entanto, poucos conhecem a sua existência. Em geral, são animais pequenos e a maioria não ultrapassa os 2 ou 3 cm de comprimento, o que, aliado ao ambiente marinho e a hábitos crípticos, torna a sua documentação particularmente difícil. Das cerca de 3000 espécies conhecidas, mais de uma centena pode ser observada na costa Portuguesa. Nos últimos anos, a contribuição de muitos fotógrafos subaquáticos no nosso país, tem tornado estes animais mais conhecidos do público em geral. E da Ciência também: esta capacidade para documentar e observar tem adicionado informação preciosa acerca de distribuições, hábitos, variações e até de novas espécies.

The aeolid nudibranch Phyllodesmium guamensis Avila, Ballesteros, Slattery, Starmer and Paul, was found actively grazing the soft corals Sinularia maxima (Verseveldt, 1971), S. polydactyla (Ehrenberg, 1834) and S. sp. on Guam. The nudibranchs exhibited a clear chemotactic preference for pieces of the soft corals when compared to control tissues which were extracted of virtually all nonpolar and polar organic metabolites. They also showed soft coral species-specificity for S. maxima. P. guamensis sequesters a diet-derived diterpene 11β-acetoxypukalide selectively within various body parts. Levels were highest in the cerata, with moderate and low to nonexistent levels in the mantle and viscera, respectively. Trace concentrations of the metabolite were also noted in the mucus and egg masses of the nudibranchs. There was no difference in metabolite accumulation in nudibranchs collected at two sites and at the same sites over two years. 11β-acetoxypukalide deters feeding by the pufferfish Canthigaster solandri at a concentration (0.5% dry mass) approximately an order of magnitude lower than amounts sequestered within the P. guamensis cerata, but concentrations within the mantle and viscera were below threshold feeding deterrent levels. Laboratory and field feeding experiments with nudibranch tissues support these observations, however, the reef fishes tested exhibited species-specific reactions to the nudibranch tissues and their isolated metabolite, which ranged from nondeterrence to emesis. Phyllodesmium guamensis appears to utilize both a cryptic and nocturnal behavior pattern and a sequestered chemical defense to overcome intensive predation pressures on the reefs of Guam.

India has a large and diverse coastal area in terms of biological as well as habitat diversity.  India is bracing for large coastal infrastructure development, which will impact intertidal biodiversity and the Maharashtra coast is not an exception.  It is therefore essential to develop baseline information on inter-tidal marine biodiversity.  As part of this effort, scientists are working on various taxa, and opisthobranchs are one such group under study.  They are beautifully colored with highly diverse adaptations to compensate for the loss of shell during the course of evolution.  Opisthobranchs are poorly studied from Indian coasts, and recent work on opisthobranchs was carried out by Apte (2009), Apte et al. (2010), Apte & Salahuddin (2011), Bhave & Apte (2010) and Ramakrishna et al. (2010).  The present paper deals with a record of the goniodorid nudibranch Okenia pellucida Burn, 1967.  There are very few records of goniodorids from India (Alder & Hancock 1864; Winckworth 1946; Ramakrishna et al. 2010).  Table 1 provides the checklist of goniodorid species hereto recorded from the Indian coasts.

The nudibranch Flabellina dana Millen and Hamann, 2006 is reported from two localities in the northeastern Brazilian coast. These are the first records of this species, previously recorded from localities in the Bahamas and the Caribbean Sea, in South Atlantic Ocean, extending its known geographic distribution more than 3500 km southward.