Chromodoris luteorosea? from Senegal

Dear Marina,
Thanks for another interesting find. I think it raises the question of whether C. luteorosea and C. luteopunctata are really different species. Your animal certainly looks like the animal Edmunds (1981) reported from Ghana as C. luteorosea but in recent messages to the Forum discussing these two species, Lucas Cervera and Angel Valdes list a number of exernal features to separate the two. The most obvious are the presence of white spots on the gills and rhinophores in C. luteopunctata and their absence in C. luteorosea. Both your animal and Edmund's Ghanaian animal have these white spots, considered typical of C. luteopunctata. However the arrangement of white-ringed yellow spots is typical of C. luteorosea, - in C. luteopunctata there are usually many small white spots in the central part of the mantle. Another difference is that C. luteorosea is said to have fewer gills arranged in a circle, while C. luteopunctata has more gills arranged in an arc with secondary spirals. On looking at other photos we now have on the Forum it seems the situation is not as simple as first proposed. Perhaps these differences are size related? and perhaps we are dealing with only one species. On the basis of the white spotted gills and rhinophores, and large number of gills, your animal would be C. luteopunctata, but on the general size and arrangement of the yellow spots and mantle glands it would be C. luteorosea.

Any thoughts would be welcome
Best wishes
Bill Rudman