Hypselodoris whitei
(Adams & Reeve, 1850)

Order: NUDIBRANCHIA
Suborder: DORIDINA
Family: Chromodorididae

DISTRIBUTION

Tropical Western Pacific

PHOTO

UPPER RIGHT: A, Solitary Is, Coffs Harbour Region New South Wales, October 1990. B, juvenile, same locality, March 1988. PHOTOS: Bill Rudman.
LOWER LEFT: Ala Moana Beach Park, Honolulu, approx 3m, Hawaii. Insets showing white markings on gills and rhinophores. PHOTO: with permission from John Hoover.(Hawaiian section of Mike Miller's Slug Site ).
LOWER RIGHT: Koumac, New Caledonia, October 1993. PHOTO: Bill Rudman.

RELATED TOPIC

Hypselodoris emma

There are a group of white or yellow chromodorids with red or purple longitudinal lines, some of have been discussed previously (Rudman, 1977). Hypselodoris whitei, originally described from Indonesia, is also known from Enewetak Atoll, New Caledonia and the tropical East Australian coast. A name often used for this species is Hypselodoris mouaci. It has a whitish background colour with a reddish purple submarginal line around the mantle edge and a series of five longitudinal lines covering the rest of the mantle. These lines are usually very crooked and joined by a series of lateral connections, breaking the mantle into rows of slightly raised whitish regions. The rhinophores are orange to orange-red with a distinctive white tip and the gills are similarly coloured with white on the inside and usually at the tip of each gill. This species is very similarly coloured to H. maridadilus, from the Indian Ocean which has a more yellow background colour, and in which the longitudinal lines are distinctly purple and cross-connections very indistinct. The lines are also much straighter than in H. whitei, and the rhinophores and gills have no white markings. The specimens reported from Japan and Hawaii as H. hilaris and H. maridadilus are more similar in colour to the Indian Ocean species, but they have the white tipped rhinophores and white upper edge to the gills. The earliest name for this species is probably Doris lineata Eydoux & Souleyet, 1852, which was described and illustrated from Hawaii (Sandwich Is). However that name is preoccupied by Doris lineata Brocchi, 1819. See my March 1, 1999 reply to Clay Bryce for a discussion on H. centunculus Yonow, 1994 which has been superceded by Gosliner & Johnson (1999) who examined the anatomy of one of Yonow's specimens and concluded that it is identical to Hypselodoris whitei in features of the radula and mantle glands.

References:
• Gosliner, T.M. & Johnson, R.F. (1999) Phylogeny of Hypselodoris (Nudibranchia: Chromodorididae) with a review of the monophyletic clade of Indo-Pacific species, including descriptions of twelve new species. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 125: 1-114.
• Rudman, W.B. (1977) Chromodorid opisthobranch Mollusca from East Africa and the tropical West Pacific. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 61: 351-397.
•Yonow, N. (1994) Opisthobranchs from the Maldive Islands, including descriptions of seven new species (Mollusca: Gastropoda). Revue fr. Aquariol., 20(4): 97-130.

LOWER LEFT: Ala Moana Beach Park, Honolulu, approx 3m, Hawaii. Insets showing white markings on gills and rhinophores. PHOTO: with permission from John Hoover.(Hawaiian section of Mike Miller's Slug Site ). LOWER RIGHT: Koumac, New Caledonia, October 1993. PHOTO: Bill Rudman.

Authorship details
Rudman, W.B., 1999 (March 1) Hypselodoris whitei (Adams & Reeve, 1850). [In] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/factsheet/hypswhit

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