Aplysia tryonii, MEINERTZHAGEN, 1880

Golestani, Haleh, Crocetta, Fabio, Padula, Vinicius, Camacho-García, Yolanda, Langeneck, Joachim, Poursanidis, Dimitris, Pola, Marta, Yokeş, M. Baki, Cervera, Juan Lucas, Jung, Dae-Wui, Gosliner, Terrence M., Araya, Juan Francisco, Hooker, Yuri, Schrödl, Michael & Valdés, Ángel, 2019, The little Aplysia coming of age: from one species to a complex of species complexes in Aplysia parvula (Mollusca: Gastropoda: Heterobranchia), Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 187, pp. 279-330 : 321

APLYSIA TRYONII MEINERTZHAGEN, 1880

Aplysia tryonii Meinertzhagen, 1880: 270–271 . Type locality: Waimarama, Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand. Holotype: Lost ( Eales, 1960).

Remarks

Meinertzhagen (1880) proposed Aplysia tryonii based on a 5-in long specimen with no illustrations and described it as: ‘Dark brown (kelp colour), spotted all over with grey pepper coloured spots,’… ‘the edges of the lower lobe of the mantle marked evenly darker brown and grey,’… ‘the lobe covering the shell striped of which stripes point to, and narrow towards, the apex of the shell’ and ‘posterior sides of upper tentacles also a peppery grey colour.’ This description is ambiguous, but the large size of the specimen indicates it is unlikely that A. tryonii is a member of any of the species included in A. parvula s.l. To highlight the confusion around this name, Eales (1960: 273) included A. tryonii in a list of invalid or of doubtful validity (= nomen dubium) names, but at the same time mentioned that it is possible that A. tryonii is a synonym of A. parvula ( Eales, 1960: 287) . Eales (1960: 291) also commented that specimens described and illustrated by Suter (1913: 545, pl. 36, fig. 6) as A. tryonii are probably A. parvula . While it looks evident that at least one species of A. parvula s.l. is present in New Zealand, due to the large size of the holotype, it is very unlikely A. tryonii belongs to this group and therefore it is here regarded as a taxon inquirendum.