Paradoris sp. #4

 Paradoris sp. #4 is yet another rarely seen animal, perhaps due to its diminutive size and rather bland colour.  This particular 15 mm animal was discovered because I was pulling up some fishing line which had caught on some dead coral in the surge at Ma’alaea Bay, Maui.  As I dove down to free the line, I  noticed some eggs in close proximity and paid a bit more attention to the clump of hydroids and line it was caught up in.   Whether it was originally somewhere else and dragged into the coral by the line is hard to say.  Its most notable feature were its rather crown-like gill structure (placed far back on the notum) and its slightly raised white speckles.   It is quite similar to Paradoris #7 (at least I confused them at first), but the branchia gill on the latter is further forward and far more plume-like (my humble opinion).  Cory Pittman and Pauline Fiene provide further information and photos on Sea Slugs of Hawaii, suggesting that another possible animal to compare it to is Discodorididae un sp. #8 

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