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2026 · Photo: Boaz Liebes
Coleman's Phyllodesmium
Philippines · Indo Pacific - South China Sea
A solar-powered aeolid, superbly camouflaged on its food, the organ-pipe coral Tubipora musica. It is the only Phyllodesmium known to feed on Tubipora; its congeners typically feed on soft corals such as Xenia or Sinularia. Zooxanthellae taken from the coral are kept in the branches of the digestive gland inside the cerata, sustaining a photosymbiotic lifestyle. Named after the Australian underwater naturalist Neville Coleman, who collected the type material.
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Body narrow and elongate; body and cerata translucent greenish brown with small brown specks, with greenish-white patches along each side between the cerata. Up to eleven groups of cerata on each side. Each ceras has a cylindrical stalk that broadens and flattens towards the tip, a greenish-white band along its lower edge and a pair of white lines along its upper edge that meet at the tip, matching the white-edged tentacles of the Tubipora polyps. At rest the cerata are somewhat coiled. Rhinophores smooth and tapering, about as long as the oral tentacles.
Other brownish Phyllodesmium species live on soft corals (Xenia, Sinularia and others); finding the animal on Tubipora musica, together with the paired white lines along the cerata, is the most reliable clue.
Coral reefs and lagoons, on colonies of Tubipora musica; recorded from 2 to about 15 m.
The organ-pipe coral Tubipora musica (Tubiporidae).