Limapontiid sap-sucking slugs
Limapontiidae
- Species in the gallery
- 3
- Genera
- 2
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Limapontiidae
Limapontiidae is a family of small to minute sacoglossan sea slugs (Sacoglossa). WoRMS accepts about a dozen genera, including Ercolania, Placida, Stiliger, Limapontia, Alderia and Olea. Members occur worldwide, including the Mediterranean, mostly in shallow water and sometimes in brackish habitats. Most feed on green algae by piercing cells and sucking out the contents, which often colours them green.
Tiny slugs, usually a few millimetres long, often with simple, swollen or spindle-shaped cerata along the back through which the green digestive gland shows; some genera, such as Limapontia, lack cerata altogether. Rhinophores are simple or rolled, and there are no oral tentacles. They live directly on their host algae; Costasiella, sometimes placed here, has eyes set unusually close together.
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