Science Daily — 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.

Alicia Hermosillo, researcher at the Universidad de Guadalajara in Mexico, and Angel Valdes, assistant curator of Malacology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, describe five newly discovered species of nudibranchs, two of which Hermosillo collected in Panama, in Volume 22 of the American Malacological Bulletin.

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.