We saw several of these at various sites around Anilao. Similar in color to Hypselodoris infucata and H. roo, they are easiest to distinguish from the former by the morphology and coloration of the gills, which have flattened outer surfaces with a series of light-colored spots running from base to tip. Gill morphology is similar to H. roo, but the lower half of the gills and the rhinophore bases of that species are red instead of dark blue to black. There are also differences in the internal anatomy and molecular data. However, H. roo and H. confetti are very similar in appearance and even the gill color seems to blend together, so some of our IDs may be incorrect. The figure of H. confetti in Gosliner et al (2018) has a much lighter colored body than our specimens, but an animal figured on the Slug Site that is even darker than ours was identified by one of the species' authors as H. confetti.
Created 17 April 2020