Hypselodoris violabranchia
Gosliner & Johnson, 1999

Order: NUDIBRANCHIA
Suborder: DORIDINA
Superfamily: EUDORIDOIDEA
Family: Chromodorididae

DISTRIBUTION

Hawaiian Islands.

PHOTO

Oahu. PHOTOS: Scott Johnson.

General body colour salmon pink. The mantle with fine white longitudinal lines and a purple margin round the anterior and posterior ends. Posterior end of foot also margined with purple. Rhinophores have a basal orange band then a median purple band. Upper part of rhinophore club is washy purple. The outside edge of the the translucent gills is purple. Grows to approx 15mm. See Scott Johnson's message below.

Reference:
•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.

Authorship details
Rudman, W.B., 2000 (February 9) Hypselodoris violabranchia Gosliner & Johnson, 1999. [In] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/hypsviol

Related messages


Hypselodoris violabranchia from Hawaii

March 21, 2008
From: Erik Walter

I am trying to figure out what type of nudibranch this is. As best as I can tell it belongs to the Hypselodoris genus. Sorry about the poor picture quality, but this little guy was running from me and I had to snap a picture before he crawled into a crack in the rock.

Locality: White Rock, 20 feet, Maui, Hawaii, Pacific Ocean, 07 July 2007, On a rock in a sand patch, near the main reef. Length: 1.5 inches. Photographer: Erik Walter.

Erik Walter

soup9_87@hotmail.com

Walter, E., 2008 (Mar 21) Hypselodoris violabranchia from Hawaii. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/21082

Dear Erik,

This is Hypselodoris violabranchia. It is nice to get another record of this species. We know very little about it and it has only been reported from Hawaii.

Best wishes,
Bill Rudman

Rudman, W.B., 2008 (Mar 21). Comment on Hypselodoris violabranchia from Hawaii by Erik Walter. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/21082

Hypselodoris violabranchia from Hawaii

February 10, 2000
From: Scott Johnson


Hi Bill,

Attached are three shots of another Hawaiian Hypselodoris. I've seen H. violabranchia in scattered locations around Oahu, Hawaii, generally wandering about in the open alone or in pairs at depths of 5 to 15 meters. The animals tend to be pretty small, but I think I've seen them up to about 20mm long. The longitudinal white streaks on its body resemble those on a couple of other Hawaiian Hypselodoris species, H. andersoni (= H. peasei) and H. insulana.

Scott

johnson@kmr.ll.mit.edu

Johnson. S., 2000 (Feb 10) Hypselodoris violabranchia from Hawaii. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/1861