Opisthobranch of the Week Data
I've not personally seen Phyllidia carlsonhoffi here in the waters of Okinawa's main island. Atsushi Ono mentions collecting only a single specimen (pers. comm.) off Zamami Island in the Keramas * and considers this animal to be very rare there. Atsushi reports finding the above featured animal on the surface of a rock in five meters of water.
Phyllidia carlsonhoffi is known from Micronesia, Papua new Guinea, Fiji, Indonesia, and now Okinawa (Keramas).
The following description of the external morphology of Phyllidia carlsonhoffiis taken from Brunckhorst (1993):
Phyllidia carlsonhoffi has a black background colour with cream tubercles which are capped in yellow. The notal tubercles are broad based but do not form ridges. Large conical, tubercles alternate with very small rounded ones. The central notal tubercles in this species are relatively tall, attaining a height of 7 mm in some specimens. The rhinophoral pockets occur on the anterior surface of the base of the sharply defined rhinotubercles. There are no tubercles immediately anterior to each rhinophoral pocket. There is, however, a single tubercle situated in the midline anterior to the rhinophores (but not immediately adjacent to the rhinophoral pocket). The rhinophores are yellow in colour and their clavus possess 23-26 lamellae each (40-65 mm specimens).
The following Phyllidia species have been previously featured on these pages:
* Keramas = the Kerama Islands Group, located 30 ~ 40 kilometers west of the Okinawa capitol, Naha.