The Tropical Eastern Pacific, a discrete biogeographic region that has an extremely high rate of endemism among its marine organisms, continues to yield a wealth of never-before-described marine animals to visiting scientists at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.
Nudibranchs—a group of mollusks lacking outer shells—have developed sophisticated chemical defense mechanisms, which is particularly important because promising industrial and medicinal products have been isolated from known species. New species may provide cures for diseases that are currently untreatable.
Working from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute’s Research Vessel, the Urraca, in Panama’s Gulf of Chiriqui and from the M/V Destiny in Mexico, Hermosillo and other scientists collected sea slugs, aeolid nudibranchs in scientific parlance, between 2001 and 2005.
It took Hermosillo and her collaborators two more years to identify the animals
clipped from: www.eurekalert.org