Philinopsis speciosa Pease, 1860

Yonow, Nathalie, 2012, Opisthobranchs from the western Indian Ocean, with descriptions of two new species and ten new records (Mollusca, Gastropoda), ZooKeys 197, pp. 1-130 : 6-7

Philinopsis speciosa Pease, 1860 Plate 9

Philinopsis speciosa Pease, 1860: 21 (Hawaii); Gosliner et al. 2008: 29 (Pacific); Yogesh Kumar et al. 2011: 106, fig. 1a (India).

Doridium cyaneum : Eliot 1903a: 334 (Zanzibar).

Aglaja cyanea : Macnae 1962: 193 (South Africa).

Philinopsis cyanea (Martens). - Rudman 1972: 394, fig. 15 (Zanzibar); Gosliner 1987: 41, fig. 9 (South Africa); Yonow 1992: 199, figs. 1, 2 (Gulf of Eilat and Maldives); Yonow 1994a: 103, fig. 2A, 4D (Maldives); Yonow 2008: 81 (Red Sea); Richmond 2011: 276 (East Africa) (syn. n.)

Material.

Maldives: two specimens, 18 mm and 12 mm pres., Maayafushi Channel, Ari Atoll, 7-17 m depth on sandy slope, 12 October 1994, leg. RC Anderson & SG Buttress; 24 mm (MDV/AB/96/5), Fulidhoo lagoon, Felidhoo Atoll, 7 m depth, 03 May 1996, leg. RC Anderson & SG Buttress. - La Réunion, photographs of several individuals http://seaslugs.free.fr/nudibranche/a_intro.htm. - Tanzania: photograph of single individual, Mafia Island, shallow water, 31 July 2004, A de Villiers.

Distribution/Remarks.

The photographs on the La Réunion website show mating, egg laying, and egg development during the breeding season, November. This common Indo-West Pacific species known as Philinopsis cyanea , with an extremely variable colour pattern, has an older name, Philinopsis speciosa , which was previously considered as endemic to Hawaii. Rudman (http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/philspec) states that there are no anatomical differences between the two, and Gosliner et al. (2008) have combined them under the older name with no discussion or comment. Pease (1860) described the habit of stressed slugs vomiting perfect shells of Bulla , as recorded for specimens from the Red Sea ( Yonow 1992) and Zanzibar (Rudman, Sea Slug Forum). Philinopsis cyanea is formally synonymised with Philinopsis speciosa in this work.