Diversidoris crocea (Rudman,
1986)
25mm
This species is occasionally seen
at Enewetak and Kwajalein Atolls. It's actually rather easy to look for, since
it virtually always is on a yellow sponge thought to be a species of Darwinella.
This sponge, and consequently the nudibranch, lives under chunks of dead coral
on shallow subtidal intertidal reefs and occasionally on lagoon pinnacles at
depths of 3 to 10 meters. 30 measured specimens ranged from 9 to 25mm in length.
The
two specimens below were not on their normal yellow sponge, but a colony was
nearby.
The specimen below, found on 2
March 2009 under a rock on a Kwajalein Atoll lagoon reef at 15m depth, had a
very undulose mantle and darker orange on the margin than is usually seen. These
photos also show how long the tail is in this species.
A video capture of a specimen from
2 March 2009 shows it with an egg mass deposited on rock grazed mostly clean
of its prey sponge.
Created 18 December 2005
Updated 1 July 2012
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