Tylodina perversa
Yellow umbrella slug
Israel · Mediterranean
- Size
- 20–40 mm · max 75 mm
- Depth
- 0–15 m
- Native range
- Mediterranean Sea and adjacent eastern Atlantic, from the British Isles to the Canary Islands, Madeira and the Azores.
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Description
A bright yellow umbraculid sea slug with a small, flattened limpet-like shell, living on and inside the yellow sponge Aplysina aerophoba. It takes its yellow pigment and defensive compounds from the sponge and often lies half-buried in cavities it eats into it.
Share link: https://seaslugs.org.il/species/tylodina-perversa-israel-mediterranean/
Identification
Uniformly intense yellow body, head and rhinophores, matching its host sponge. Low, slightly conical limpet-like shell with brownish radial lines covering the back; long ear-shaped rhinophores; about ten yellow bipinnate gills on the right side under the shell.
Similar species
Tylodina rafinesquii has a higher shell without brown radial lines; T. duebenii is smaller, dark brownish-purple and lives deeper.
Habitat & diet
Habitat
Well-lit rocky bottoms with Aplysina sponges; 0–15 m.
Food
Almost exclusively the sponge Aplysina aerophoba (and its symbiotic cyanobacteria); A. cavernicola in the lab.