Julia exquisita is one of the sacoglossans with a bivalved shell.When the animal is retracted, you'd think you were looking at a small green or brown clam. Then the slug's head and foot come out and the animal crawls away like a typical snail. The tiny green specimen below was found on a Kwajalein Atoll lagoon pinnacle on 8 December 2008 at a depth of about 8m.
The bivalved nature of the shell is easy to see in the next photo.
The photo below was taken with a Dinolite digital microscope in a holding dish.
This species also comes in a brown form. This one crawled out of a sample of Caulerpa algae found on the eastern reefs lagoon side.
Created 10 December 2008
Updated 12 October 2015