48 MacFarland — Preliminary Account of Dorididse. 



13. Triopha carpenter! Stearns. 



Triopa Cnrpenteri Stearns. Descriptions of a New Genus and Two New 



Species of Nudibranchiate Mollusks from the Coast of California, Proc. 



Calif Acad. Sci., 1873, 78, fig. 2. 

 Triopha Carpmteri Stearns. Bergh, Nudibranchiate Gasteropod jMollusca 



of the North Pacific Ocean, with Special Reference to Alaska, II, Proc. 



Acad. Nat. Sci., Phila., 1880, 113. 

 Triopha Carpenleri Stearns. Bergh, System der Nudibranchiaten Gastero- 



poden, 1892, 148. 



Body limaciform, robust, anteriorly obtusely rounded, posteriorly rather 

 bluntly pointed; head obliquely flattened, lunate with a narrow frontal 

 margin laterally continued into the less conspicuous dorso-lateral ridge and 

 bearing along its whole length a series of irregularly lobed or tuberculate 

 papillae; scattered upon the minutely granuliferous dorsum many large 

 and small simple or compound tubercles, often tending to form a median 

 series in the anterior part of the dorsum. General body-color white, in- 

 clined to yellowish above, often sprinkled with minute white spots borne 

 upon very small tubercles ; tips of branchiae, clavus of rhinophores, ap- 

 pendages of frontal and lateral margins and numerous scattered tubercles 

 of the dorsum a deep orange color; numerous irregular blotches of orange 

 also scattered along the sides of the animal in no regular arrangement; 

 region of body beneath the gill-plumes darker, caused by the deep brown 

 liver shining through the skin. 



Rhinophores perfoliate, with 20 to 30 leaves, retractile into prominent 

 sheaths, the margins of which are thin, smooth or slightly wavy in outline ; 

 Branchiae 5, large, tri-pinnate, spreading non-retractile into sheaths; ten- 

 tacles short, stout, auriform, their outer borders with a longitudinal groove; 

 oral armature a triangular brownish-yellow mandibular plate on either side 

 made up of closely set slightly curved blunt rods ; radula broad, deeply 

 grooved, dark amber in color; teeth in 33 rows; rhachis broad with four 

 rows of flattened plates (spurious teeth) ; of these the inner 2 rows are quad- 

 rangular, the outer rows more triangular in form, the rounded and slightly 

 thickened anterior margin being narrower than the posterior one, the outer 

 margin prolonged backward, especially in the posterior part of the radula; 

 pleural teeth yellow, strongly hooked, of nearly uniform shape and size, 

 the number varying in difteient individuals from 9 to 18; base of each 

 hook witli a wing-like process; uncini quadrilateral in general outline, 

 varying from 9 to 18 in number in different individuals, with a conspicu- 

 ous longitudinal crest decreasing in size toward the outer uncini and dis- 

 appearing entirely in the outermost ones. Glans penis armed with minute 

 thickly set hooks. 



Length of large individual, 60 mm.; greatest height, 29 mm. ; greatest 

 width, 15 mm. Maximum height of dorso-lateral processes, 3 mm. 



Found on brown kelp of the fucoid zone and in rocky tide-pools every- 

 where along the coast of Monterey Bay. The commonest Nudibranch of the 

 region and one of the most conspicuous. 



