Bulaceros newcannorum Dixit, 2021
photos: Pippa Swannell, Kona, Hawaii. 35 ft. March 2023.

This worm appears on the Newman & Cannon CD as Bulaceros sp. 1 and is listed as occurring in Australia, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Guam, the Marshall Islands, and Hawaii. We do not know the origin of the Hawaii record, but Leslie Newman and her husband Andrew Flowers did visit Hawaii briefly in the late 1990s; perhaps they found it here. In any event, Leslie never formally described the species before she retired after Andrew's tragic death in a car accident around 2004. Years later, in 2019, biologists conducting a survey of the Lakshwadeep Islands off of India found what appeared to be the same worm. In 2021 they formally described it, giving the name Bulaceros newcannorum in honor of Newman and Cannon. Apparently following Newman and Cannon's lead, they included Hawaii in its distribution. Up till now we might have doubted the accuracy of this, but in 2023 Pippa Swannell confirmed its presence here with photos that fall well within the species' range of variation.

Pippa's worm is light brown with scattered white spots; a dark, somewhat raised medial stripe containing larger, more elongate white spots; narrow marginal bands (brown, yellow, and white); and white tipped pseudotentacles. For comparison, see photos by Scott Johnson from the Marshall Islands, particularly the top photo which Leslie used in her CD to illustrate Bulaceros sp. 1..

BACK to mottled or speckled with marginal bands