Dr. Ángel Valdés has known since childhood that he would study sea slugs, and several years ago that dream took him to New Caledonia to work with a large international research team. While divers and other collectors swept the shoreline and beyond for marine life, Ángel diligently photographed every sea slug, including some unexpected finds. Were those hours worth it? Definitely, in part because he and his team have described seven new species of Nudibranchs, in the family Discodorididae. 

Nudibranchs, also known as sea slugs, are found all over the world. But what’s so special about these “cryptic” New Caledonian species, and what might they have to do with curing rare diseases? Learn all of this and more on this episode of New Species Podcast. 

Ángel Valdés’ paper “Seven new “cryptic” species of Discodorididae (Mollusca, Gastropoda, Nudibranchia) from New Caledonia” is in the March 7th issue of Zookeys.

It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1152.98258

New Species: Atagema kimberlyae, Atagema sobanovae, Jorunna daoulasi, Jorunna hervei, Rostanga poddubetskaiae, Sclerodoris faninozi, Sclerodoris dutertrei

Episode image courtesy of Ángel Valdés

Visit Ángel’s website: https://www.cpp.edu/faculty/aavaldes/index.shtml

A transcript of this episode can be found here: Ángel Valdés - Transcript

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