Felimare fontandraui

Felimare fontandraui
Felimare fontandraui
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Mollusca
Class:	Gastropoda
(unranked):	clade Heterobranchia clade Euthyneura clade Nudipleura clade Nudibranchia
Superfamily:	Doridoidea
Family:	Chromodorididae
Genus:	Felimare
Species:	F. fontandraui
Binomial name
Felimare fontandraui (Pruvot-Fol, 1951)
Synonyms
Glossodoris fontandraui Pruvot-Fol, 1951 (original combination) Hypselodoris fontandraui (Pruvot-Fol, 1951)

Felimare fontandraui is a species of colourful sea slug or dorid nudibranch, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Chromodorididae.

Distribution

This nudibranch is known from the Eastern Atlantic Ocean and the Western Mediterranean.

Felimare fontandraui feeding on a sponge of the genus Dysidea

Description

Felimare fontandraui typically has a blue to purple body with yellow lines running down its sides and a single yellow-cream line on its upper dorsum. The upper dorsum is also often marked with light blue streaks near the mantle edge. Its mantle is edged in orange and it has black-purple gills and rhinophores. There is considerable colour variation within this species.

This species can reach a total length of at least 30 mm and has been observed feeding on yellow sponges from the genus Dysidea.

References

• Ortea, J., Valdés, A. & García-Gómez, J.C. (1996) 'Revisión de las especies atlánticas de la familia Chromodorididae (Mollusca: Nudibranchia) de grupo cromático azul. (Review of the Atlantic species of the family Chromodorididae (Mollusca: Nudibranchia) of the blue chromatic group.)' Avicennia, 1996, Suppl. 1: 1-165.

External links

• ohnson R.F. & Gosliner T.M. (2012) Traditional taxonomic groupings mask evolutionary history: A molecular phylogeny and new classification of the chromodorid nudibranchs. PLoS ONE 7(4): e33479
• Hypselodoris fontandraui page at nudipixel
• "Felimare fontandraui" page at OPK-Opistobranquis