While we would occasionally see this small species by day or night subtidally at Pupukea or under rocks on the intertidal reef at Hauula or Kewalo, they were most common in the Magic Island channel. There they could often be found feeding on a black sponge. Our specimens are externally nearly identical to what has been called Goniobranchus albonares elsewhere (e.g., the Marshall Islands) and lack the reddish rhinophores and gills of typical G. verrieri specimens from those areas. A recent paper by Soong et al (2022) discussing this group of animals lists the Hawaiian Islands as part of the distribution of G. verrieri, but Hawaiian specimens were apparently not among the ones actually examined during the study. Since the Hawaiian animals are generally called G. verrieri, we will maintain that name here for now, but further investigation of these species would be helpful.
The pair below is feeding on a silt-covered colony of black sponge in the Ala Wai channel.
This specimen with its egg mass was under a rock at a depth of about half a meter on the reef at Hauula.
Created 20 April 2009
Updated 3 February 2022