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| nudibranchs text index | photo index |
| Phylum Mollusca > Class Gastropoda > sea slugs > Order Nudibranchia |
| Black-margined
nudibranch Glossodoris atromarginata Family Chromodorididae updated Sep 12 Where seen? This lemon yellow nudibranch with black-edged ruffles has twitchy gills! On rubble near reefs. Commonly encountered on many of our Southern shores, sometimes in rather large numbers. Features: 3-5cm long. A hard lemon-yellow body with an undulating margin that is elegantly edged in black. It holds this portion of its body raised. The black edging is also found on the feathery gills and feathery rhinopores. There are black rings where the rhinophores emerge from the body. The feathery gills rotate constantly to and fro. This is believed to help improve respiration as unlike most other nudibranchs which have thin body skins; the body skin of this nudibranch is rather thick and probably doesn't allow much secondary respiration to take place across the body skin. There are some other Glossodoris nudibranchs that look similar to it and can only be differentiated by internal examination. What does it eat? It eats sponges. Neville Coleman notes it eating these sponges: Fasciospongia sp., Spongia sp. and Luffariella sp. Members of the Family Chromodorididae absorb the toxic chemicals in their sponge food and incorporate these chemicals into the mantle glands on their backs which act to repel predators. |
 Body held raised St. John's Island, May 05  Black-tipped rhinophores |
 Sisters Island, Jul 06 |
 Closeup of mouth and short oral tentacles. |
 Feathery gills rotate constantly |
 St. John's Island,Jun 07 . |
 A mating mess? Pulau Semakau, Nov 09 |
Black-margined nudibranchs on Singapore shores
| Photos for free download from wildsingapore flickr |
Links
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IKAN-Unterwasserachiv, Frankfurt. 321 pp.|
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