Phyllidiella pustulosa
Pustulose wart slug
Djibouti · Red Sea - Bab el Mandeb strait (Gulf of Aden)
- Size
- 15–50 mm · max 65 mm
- Depth
- 1–30 m
- Native range
- Tropical Indo-West Pacific, from the Red Sea and East Africa to the central Pacific.
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Description
One of the most common nudibranchs on tropical Indo-West Pacific reefs, a phyllidiid dorid with a tough, warty mantle and no dorsal gill plume (the gills lie under the mantle edge). Like other phyllidiids it produces distasteful chemicals and is readily seen crawling in the open by day.
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Identification
Black mantle covered with rounded tubercles that are pink, green or whitish, gathered into clusters; the three median clusters are fused in juveniles and become separate in large animals. The mantle edge is pale pink and the oral tentacles are black-tipped. Rhinophores are black.
Similar species
Phyllidiella annulata has pink tubercles arranged in rings around black centres; P. zeylanica and P. granulata differ in the arrangement of the tubercles and in mantle-edge colour.
Habitat & diet
Habitat
Coral reefs and rubble, in the open by day; roughly 1–30 m.
Food
Like other phyllidiids, feeds on sponges.
