New species of Hypselodoris?

[troporobo 203]

Hi all.  I got back in the water last weekend and spotted what may be two rare or possibly even new species of Hypselodoris.  First, H. unicornii:

 

 

Then on another site, H. menageatroisia:

 

Just kidding, of course.  What I really want to know is whether these are H. bulockii or H. apolegma.  I cannot tell them apart from web searches.

Also by the way, what's happened to Nudipixel?  The old site has been down for a long time and I will not go to FB for this (or anything else).  

Thanks!

 

[BigJeff 5]

I have been told the apolegma has the speckles on the border of the mantle, bulockii solid line.

[JustinO 2]

Have you tried  http://www.seaslugforum.net ? I don't think it's being maintained anymore by Bill Rudman from the Australian Museum, but you might find some answers there... seems like a bit of a debate as to whether H. bullocki and H. apolegma are even distinct species... my (ex-biologist) and tongue in cheek nature prefers your nomenclature!

[troporobo 203]

Thanks. According to that forum, they are H. apolegma 

[ChrisRoss 150]

4 hours ago, troporobo said:

Thanks. According to that forum, they are H. apolegma 

Seaslug forum is quite out of date.  The two places that seem to have all the nudi knowledge concentrated are the Facebook groups Nudibase and Nudibranch central.  Nudipixel disappeared which was quite annoying and their facebook page doesn't have much happening.

Do you have the Gosliner book, (NSSI) ?  In that (my edition at any rate)  these are very clearly H.apolegma, which they say has recently been described as a new species.  The H.bullocki pic they have is very different, very pale mauve pink with a thin white marginal line - very thin.  The photo on the main page of sea slug forum is the one referred to as H.bullocki.

I looked on Nudibase and found this link which is a paper decsribing these sepceis and similar looking slugs.  It's a big paper but the stuff around  figure 37 covers these slugs.  https://academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/article/186/1/116/5098244?guestAccessKey=5fd02506-1dcc-4169-aec3-f1cbc4e3066c#121310377

[troporobo 203]

Thanks a lot Chris.  That article is quite a lot to take in but does seem definitive. 

[bvanant 155]

Don't worry. Pretty soon Terry will figure out that they aren't really Hypselodoris anymore and we will all have to learn another name. Many of the SoCal nudis that we all knew now have new names. 

Bill