Taringa halgerda Gosliner & Behrens, 1998

Just one more new species to come from our wonderful little reef in Balayan Bay, north of the village of Anilao, Batangas Province, Philippines. Affectionately referred to as "Bus Stop Reef" because of its proximity to a Bus Stop on the road adjacent to the reef, this is also the type locality for our recently described Chromodoris hintuanensis.

Some of you are probably wondering about the why the species name we nominated for this new species is identical to that of another nudibranch genus - Halgerda We did this to draw attention to the overall, external, morphological similarity between this species and members of the genus Halgerda. Because of the Halgerda-like gills and rhinophores, we had always thought this species was a Halgerda, until we did our dissections to evaluate the internal anatomy. No way, totally different!.

First we were confronted with the question of what genera should we place it in. Not uncommon in this kind of search, we bumped into the species Trippa luteola, which is very similar to our new guy in shape and color. The species formerly referred to as Trippa luteola, as well as two other names, will be featured in an upcoming BOW. Upon a closer (internal) look at this species we decided that it too was assigned to the wrong genus. Now we needed a genus for both. Our final decision, after much searching - Taringa.

Taringa halgerda is small, reaching 33 mm in length. It is white with low, flat, yellow tubercles, each of which are digitate, with short, rounded papillae extending from their posterior surface. The huge Halgerda-like gills and rhinophores are black.

The egg mass of the species is a densely packed, open coiled ribbon, attached to the substrate along its edge. It has a very characteristic pale blue color and is about 20 mm in diameter.

To date we know of T. halgerda only from "Bus Stop Reef" in the Philippines and from two photographs, one by Takamasa Tonozuka from Bali, Indonesia (see Debelius, 1996, page 217 top, as Cadlinella sp.) and one taken by Jim Black from Milne Bay, Papua New Guinea. Please let us know if you have seen this critter elsewhere.

Terrence M. Gosliner and David W. Behrens. 1998.Two New Discodorid Nudibranchs from the Western Pacific with a Redescription of Doris Luteola Kelaart, 1858. Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences, 50(11): 279-293, 7 Figs.

David W. Behrens Author: Pacific Coast Nudibranchs Co-Author Coral Reef Animals of the Indo Pacific Propriator of Sea Challengers Natural History Books ! Send Dave mail at seachalleng@earthlink.net

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