Doto escatllari explained

Doto escatllari is a species of sea slug, a nudibranch, a marine gastropod mollusc in the family Dotidae.

Distribution

This species was first described from the Canary Islands. It has subsequently been reported from the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica,[1] Barbados[2] and Panama.

Description

The body is short and narrow. Rhinophores are smooth and with opaque white dots. Rhinophoral sheaths are with small frontal extensions. Cerata are large with rounded tubercles; apical tubercles much larger than the rest. The cerata are translucent blue, and the ceratal tubercles have no dark spots and contain dense concentrations of rounded hyaline glandular structures. Background color is translucent gray with a series of dark brown spots on the dorsum. Cerata are with dark brown branches of the digestive gland and bluish tubercles. This dendronotid nudibranch is translucent white with mid-sized black spots scattered over the top and sides of the body. In the internal base of the ceratal peduncle there is a black mark below the three-lobed transparent pseudobranch.[3]

The maximum recorded body length is 5 mm or 6 mm.[4]

Ecology

Minimum recorded depth is 1 m.[4] Maximum recorded depth is 4 m.[4]

Doto escatllari was found associated with small hydroids of the family Sertulariidae; these are probably its prey.

References

This article incorporates Creative Commons (CC-BY-4.0) text from the reference[5]

Notes and References

  1. Ortea J. (2001). "El género Doto Oken, 1815 (Mollusca: Nudibranchia) en el mer Caribe: Historia natural y descripción de nuevas especies". Avicennia Suppl. 3: 1-46. page 21.
  2. Valdés Á., Hamann J., Behrens D. W. & DuPont A. (2006). Caribbean Sea Slugs. Sea Challengers Natural History Books, Etc., Gig Harbor, Washington, pp. 216-217. .
  3. https://archive.today/20140918134823/http://darnis.inbio.ac.cr/FMPro?-DB=UBIpub.fp3&-lay=WebAll&-Format=/ubi/detail.html&-Op=bw&id=5021&-Find Doto escatllari account at INBio. Species of Costa Rica
  4. Welch J. J. (2010). "The “Island Rule” and Deep-Sea Gastropods: Re-Examining the Evidence". PLoS ONE 5(1): e8776. .
  5. Goodheart J. A., Ellingson R. A., Vital X. G., Galvão Filho H. C., McCarthy J. B., Medrano S. M., Bhave V. J., García-Méndez K., Jiménez L. M., López G. & Hoover C. A. (2016). "Identification guide to the heterobranch sea slugs (Mollusca: Gastropoda) from Bocas del Toro, Panama". Marine Biodiversity Records 9(1): 56.