Trapania brunnea? in Perth, West Australia

Note added 25 August 2006: Following message #17405 , I have reidentified this as Trapania safracornia... Bill Rudman

Dear Tom,
When I first saw your photo my first thought was Trapania safracornia a recently named species from Rottnest Island, off Perth. However on reflection I think it is T. brunnea. The main colour difference between your animal and 'typical' T. brunnea is that the lateral processes alongside the rhinophores are completely white whereas in T. brunnea they uasually have a large brown region midway. It definitely has similarities to T. safracornia, in which the lateral processes, beside the gills and beside the rhinophores are completely white. In the original illustration of T. safracornia [see Fact Sheet] both the gills and rhinophores are suffused with red, but it is possible that a fault in the photograph - perhaps from the red background. Unfortunately we only know of T. safracornia from the original description so we have no idea of its variability. It is of course possible that it is a western Australian colour variant of T. brunnea. Shireen Fahey mentions a difference in radular morphology between the two species but in general shape the two are very similar and the differences in denticulation found in specimens of T. brunnea from New South Wales and Victoria (Rudman, 1987) are no greater than found when comparing T. brunnea with T. safracornia.

I guess what we need, as a first step, are some more photos of T. safracornia from Rottnest Island and other parts of southwestern Australia so we have some idea of its colour variation
Best wishes,
Bill Rudman