Abstract
Sixteen new species of Trapania are described from the tropical Indo‐Pacific, temperate South Africa and the Galapagos Islands. Trapania armilla sp. nov., T. tora sp. nov., T. caerulea sp. nov. and T. miltabrancha are known only from Bali, Indonesia. Trapania squama sp. nov. is known from Papua New Guinea and the Marshall Islands. Trapania nebula sp. nov. is known only from Papua New Guinea. Trapania palmula sp. nov. and T. gibbera are known from Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and southern Japan. Trapania scurra sp. nov. is known from the Phillippines, Malaysia and Indonesia. Trapania euryeia sp. nov. is widespread in the Indo‐Pacific (Reunion, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and the northwestern and high Hawaiian Islands) as is T. naeva sp. nov. (Tanzania, Kenya, Rodrigues, Reunion, Maldives, Western Australia, Indonesia, Fiji, southern Japan). Trapania vitta sp. nov. is known from Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and southern Japan. T. circinata sp. nov. is known only from the Marshall Islands. Trapania cirrita sp. nov. is known from temperate Indian Ocean of South Africa while T. melaina sp. nov. is known from the tropical Indian Ocean of southern Africa. Trapania darwini sp. nov. is known from the tropical eastern Pacific of the Galapagos Islands. The new species are externally distinguished from all other described Trapania. One of the new species, Trapania euryeia sp. nov. has the widest geographic range (from the western Indian Ocean to the Hawaiian Islands) of the new species and it has a colour pattern that is similar to Trapania brunnea found from southeastern Australia. Unique aspects and combination of characters of the reproductive and radular morphology distinguish each new species from other Trapania. The phylogenetic relationships among the Goniodorididae are examined based upon morphological characters of several previously described species of additional Goniodorididae along with the 16 new species of Trapania. Results of the analyses demonstrate that Trapania is a well supported, monophyletic clade of goniodorid nudibranchs. Ancula gibbosa is the sister taxon to Trapania. Trapania species examined in this study cluster into three distinguishable clades, two largely from the tropical Indo‐Pacific and a third from the Indo‐Pacific, Britain, Spain and Brazil. A group of unresolved species from the Caribbean, the Galapagos Islands, and the Indo‐Pacific is basally situated to the more resolved clades. Further investigation is required to test clade robustness and further elucidate relationships of taxa included in several polytomies.
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