Diaulula Bergh, 1878

Valdés, Ángel & Bertsch, Hans, 2010, Two new species of dorid nudibranchs from the Gulf of California (Mar de Cortés), Baja California, Mexico, add _ journal _ name _ here 33 (1), pp. 1-11 : 2

Diaulula Bergh, 1878

Diaulula Bergh, 1878: 567 . Type species: Doris sandiegensis Cooper, 1863 , by monotypy.

Anisodoris Bergh, 1898: 508 . Type species: Doris punctuolata d’ Orbigny, 1837 , by subsequent designation by O’ Donoghue (1926).

Diagnosis. Body flexible. Dorsum covered with elongate caryophyllidia. Caryophyllidia with small lateral cilia. Rhinophoral and branchial sheaths low. Prostate flattened, with two portions. Penis and vagina unarmed. Labial cuticle smooth. Radular teeth hamate and smooth.

Remarks. Very little is known about the biology of species of Diaulula . Bergh (1878) introduced the genus Diaulula Bergh, 1878 based on Doris sandiegensis Cooper, 1863 , originally described by Cooper (1863). The main characteristics of this genus are the presence of a villous, silky dorsum, anterior border of the foot notched and grooved, tripinnate branchial leaves, absence of jaws, presence of a large prostate and penis unarmed.

The genus Anisodoris Bergh, 1898 was described as a member of the family Archidorididae , which differs from the “typical” archidoridids by the presence of a larger prostate (Bergh 1898). In the short diagnosis of this genus, Bergh (1898) also indicated that the penis is unarmed, and that this feature separates Anisodoris from Homoiodoris Bergh, 1880 (originally described by Bergh, 1880). The genus Anisodoris was based on several species, including Anisodoris punctuolata (d’ Orbigny, 1837) , Anisodoris oariolata (d’ Orbigny, 1837) , Anisodoris marmorata Bergh, 1898 , and Anisodoris tessellata Bergh, 1898 (originally described by d’ Orbigny, 1835-46 [1837] and Bergh, 1898). Subsequently O’ Donoghue (1926) selected A. punctuolata to be the type species.An anatomical examination of newly collected specimens of A. puctuolata showed that it has the same features as members of Diaulula (see Valdés & Gosliner 2001), and these two genus names are synonyms.The genus name Anisodoris has been used to include species with large, simple dorsal tubercles (Millen 1982; Schrödl 1997, 2000) that do not fit the characteristics of the type species. Most of the species previously assigned to Anisodoris probably belong to the genera Peltodoris Bergh, 1880 or Archidoris Bergh, 1878 so at this point it is not possible to provide a complete list of the species in this genus. Both Peltodoris and Archidoris differ from Diaulula by lacking caryophyllidia.