Re: Phyllidiella mimic

December 1, 1998
From: Richard Willan

Dear Bill,

When I was in Madang, Papua New Guinea, in 1988 I did discover a dorid that mimics Phyllidiella pustulosa and I gave a presentation on this at the Unitas Malacologia Congess in Tubingen in 1989. So the only publication to date is in the Proceedings of that Congress. Since then I have examined the holotype of Discodoris liturata Bergh, 1905, which is in Amsterdam, and this is the same species but the genus is not Discodoris. Some day I'll get around to publishing this superb example of mimicry and the taxonomy of the mimic.

A picture of the mimic (named only "undescribed cryptobranch dorid") and model, plus several other putative mullerian mimicry associations involving opisthobranchs, was published in an interesting paper by Gosliner & Behrens (1990) and it would be appropriate to put this reference on the Forum too. The similarity of the mimic and Phyllidiella pustulosa is quite extraordinary!

Cheers,
Richard Willam

Willan, R., 1998 (Dec 1) Re: Phyllidiella mimic. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/350

Note added 5 March 2007: This species, previously known on the Forum as Discodoris? liturata Bergh, 1905 is now placed in the genus Paradoris.

Thanks Richard,
I've put the relevant references on the Fact Sheet
Bill Rudman.

Factsheet

Paradoris liturata

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