Paradoris adamsae
Dorsal photograph of living holotype by Ángel Valdés
Crawl Key, Bocas del Toro, Panamá
Paradoris adamsae Padula & Valdés, 2012
A dark-brown animal, with many small white cream spots and dark dots covering the notum. Dorsum covered with large, conical, irregular tubercles, some much larger than the rest. The larger tubercles are primarily on the dorsal hump. Entire dorsum covered with small holes, up to 100 µm in diameter. Short, perfoliate rhinophores, pale brown with dark spots, and about 16 lamellae. Six tripinnate gill leaves, four pointing anteriorly and the two leaves bordering the anus point posteriorly.
Radular formula 68-65 x 24.0.24; lateral teeth hook-shaped with a grooved outer edge, devoid of denticles.
The authors’ phylogenetic analysis revealed two distinct clades among 22 species of the monophyletic Paradoris: an eastern Pacific and Atlantic clade consisting of 7 species, and an Indo-West Pacific clade from South Africa to Hawaii, and from Japan to New Zealand (see also Dayrat, 2006).
Although a later study (Goodheart et al., 2016; see also their Figure 1, a map of the collecting localities) raised the number of known heterobranch sea slugs from Panama’s Boca del Toras to 82 species, they did not recollect Paradoris adamsae. So far it is known only from the original three type specimens in northwest Panama.
The species is “[d]edicated to Peggy Adams and the Adams Foundation in gratitude for the internship in Biological Sciences at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County given to the senior author.”
Literature Cited
Dayrat, Benoît. 2006. A taxonomic revision of Paradoris sea slugs (Mollusca, Gastropoda, Nudibranchia, Doridina). Journal of the Linnean Society 147: 125-238.
Goodheart, Jessica A., Ryan A. Ellingson, Xochitl G. Vital, Hilton C. Galvão Filho, Jennifer B. McCarthy, Sabrina M. Medrano, Vishal J. Bhave, Kimberly García-Méndez, Lina M. Jiménez, Gina López, Craig A. Hoover, Jaymes D. Awbrey, Jessika M. De Jesus, William Gowacki, Patrick J. Krug & Ángel Valdés. 2016. Identification guide to the heterobranch sea slugs (Mollusca: Gastropoda) from Bocas del Toro, Panama. Marine Biodiversity Records 9(1), Article 56: 1-31.
Padula, Vinicius & Ángel Valdés. 2012. Phylogeny and biogeography of Paradoris (Nudibranchia, Discodorididae), with the description of a new species from the Caribbean Sea. The Veliger 51(3): 165-176.
Author Photo Notes:
With the recent death of Queen Elizabeth II (8 September 2022), I thought an historic author photo would be appropriate. In the summer of 1953 my father Hugh Cecil Bertsch took my mother Olga Mary née Wolverson, my sister Kathy and me on a trip to England to visit my mom’s relatives. This picture was taken at Manchester, shortly after our arrival at Liverpool, by mom’s Uncle Horace Spruce. Note the floral design of the young queen on horseback decorating the round-about behind us. To avoid the crowds at Queen Elizabeth’s coronation events, we did not go to London until the end of our trip. Photo courtesy Kathy Compagno.
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