Pigments of Nudibranchiate Mollusca

Abstract

LAST summer, on the coast of California, I had occasion to study three species of the beautiful genus Chromodoris, all of them hitherto undescribed. Technical descriptions have been sent for publication elsewhere, but the purpose of the present note is to call attention to the interesting pigments possessed by these animals, C. universitatis (so called because it bears the colours of the University of California) is a large species, more than 2½ inches in length, of a rich dark ultramarine blue, the edges of the mantle and foot bright cobalt blue. The mantle has two longitudinal series of oblong very bright orange spots, about seven in a series; there are also five orange spots on the anterior part of the mantle. The sides of the foot also exhibit a row of orange spots.