Doris marmorata Risso, 1818

Renau, Mar F., Salvador, Xavier & Moles, Juan, 2024, Molecular and morpho-anatomical assessment of the family Dorididae (Mollusca, Nudibranchia) in the Mediterranean and North-East Atlantic, European Journal of Taxonomy 943, pp. 59-79 : 69-72

Doris marmorata Risso, 1818

Figs 2–3 , 8

Doris marmorata Risso, 1818: 369 .

Doris marmorata – Schmekel 1968b: 177, figs 5–8. — Schmekel & Portmann 1982: 72–75, pls 20.3, 30.10 figs 7–11.

Type locality

Nice, France, Mediterranean Sea.

Diagnosis

Body rounded, flat, light white. Mantle tubercles numerous, light orange in color. Rhinophores lamellar, orange distally. Gills white.

Material examined

SPAIN – Catalonia • 1 spec. (sequenced: L = 0.4 cm); Girona, Blanes, Punta Santa Anna ; 41.67° N, 2.80° E; 7 m depth; 5 Feb. 2016; Xavier Salvador leg.; GenBank: OR286430 ; ZSM20240263 • 1 spec. (sequenced: L = 1.5 cm); Girona, Sant Feliu de Guíxols, Coves Cala Maset ; 41.7865° N, 3.0447° E; 2 m depth; 7 Feb. 2019; Xavier Salvador leg.; GenBank: OR286431 ; ZSMMol20210023 .

Description

EXTERNAL MORPHOLOGY. Body rounded, flat, light white. Tubercles numerous, the larger specimen with top dark yellow to orange. Rhinophores lamellar, with middle until top part orange. Gills white, with little orange points in external part of branchial leaves.

Ecology

The specimen ZSM20240263 was observed during the day crawling over undetermined algae in a rocky wall. Specimen ZSMMol20210023 was recorded during a night dive actively moving over the algae.

Distribution

France (Mediterranean coast; Risso 1818), Italy (Between Capo Posillipo and Nisida; Schmekel & Portmann 1982), Northern Aegean Sea ( Koutsoubas et al. 1993), and Catalonia (this study).

Remarks

In the description of Schmekel & Portmann (1982), the central notal region is surrounded by dark spots, but in our specimens, the central region is whiter than the rest of the notum and the dark spots are not visible. The orange tubercles and rhinophores are exactly alike. The maximum length of the specimens described is 12 mm and the maximum length of our specimens while alive was 15 mm. There, they describe that the rhinophore leaned forward when moving, a behaviour that was observed in specimen ZSMMol20210023. Overall, the morphological description of our specimens matches the description of the species.

Figures

Fig. 2. Bayesian phylogenetic tree of Dorididae Rafinesque, 1815 based on the concatenated alignment of COI, 16S, and H3 markers. Posterior probabilities and bootstrap support values are shown above and below branches, respectively. The outgroup used to root the tree was the genus Aphelodoris Bergh, 1879. Green dots indicate nodes with maximum branch support in both analyses. The scale bar indicates substitutions per site. Names of the sequences downloaded from GenBank have not been modified, yet taxa that may belong to a different identity are specified between quotation marks. Specimens sequenced in this study are highlighted in bold.

Fig. 3. Results from ASAP for both COI (top) and 16S (bottom) markers of the alignment of the species within the genus Doris Linnaeus, 1758 based on the phylogenetic tree results. Colour boxes refer to species hypotheses and the dash-line is the threshold (representing a 5–10% genetic divergence distance) in which species hypotheses were selected.

Fig. 8. Doris marmorata (Risso, 1818). A. Specimen from Blanes, NE Spain (ZSM20240263). B. Specimen from Sant Feliu de Guíxols, NE Spain (ZSMMol20210023).