Nudibranch ID from Indonesia

Couldn't find this in any of the nudi books I checked, and Lorenz and the dive guides had never seen it, either. Any ideas?

I'm pretty sure, it is a chromodoris, but I don't know which one.

Simon

Looks to me like a purple-spotted Hypselodoris (Hypselodoris purpureomasculosa) as shown in the "Revised Standard" Indo-Pacific nudi reference (ie Neville Coleman's "1001 Nudibranchs") p81, bottom row.

I could be wrong of course.

-David

Nice shot by the way.

I meant to say that too - better than the one in the book, too!

-David

I looked up the Debelius Snail book, and I don't think it is a Hypselodoris.

I think it is a Chromodoris Sp. The Debelius states that there are a lot of different kinds of Chromodoris Sp. in South-East-Asia, a lot of them undescribed.

Maybe we should call it "Chromodoris Chengi"

Simon

Hi folks !

I think David's right, I checked both Coleman and Debelius, and also two Japanese nudie guides, it matches best HYPSELODORIS PURPUREOMACULOSA, it has the same patched pattern on the back, the orange fringe, and the orange-coloured gill, none of the Chromodoris species comes close to this pattern

ciao

Art

Some links to photos of HYPSELODORIS PURPUREOMACULOSA:

http://www.medslugs.de/E/Pac-W/Hypselodori...reomaculosa.htm

http://www.rfbolland.com/okislugs/hypspurp.html

Most of the photos online show rather muted colors. But the markings do seem to match...?

Photo Source: Sub Aqua Pictures, Fredy J. Brauchli

The Sea Slug Forum is an excellent source of information regarding nudibranchs, especially when you think you have an ID. You can search on that name and see various color forms and sometimes juveniles. The link for this particular one is

http://www.seaslugforum.net/hypspurp.htm

It is a little harder when you have no clue to the ID, as the search engine isn't good for descriptions. But I generally use the books to get a potential ID, then go to the forum for a lot more details.

Hope this helps people who are interested in sea slugs (nudibranchs).