Crowned doto

Crowned doto
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Mollusca
Class:	Gastropoda
(unranked):	clade Heterobranchia clade Euthyneura clade Nudipleura clade Nudibranchia clade Dexiarchia clade Cladobranchia clade Dendronotida
Superfamily:	Tritonioidea
Family:	Dotidae
Genus:	Doto
Species:	D. coronata
Binomial name
Doto coronata (Gmelin, 1791)

The crowned doto, Doto coronata, is a species of small sea slug or nudibranch, a dendronotid nudibranch, a shell-less marine gastropod mollusc in the family Dotidae. This species is found off South Africa, in the north Atlantic Ocean and in the Mediterranean Sea.

Distribution

This species is found in the north Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. Around the South African coast it is found from the Atlantic coast to Knysna. It is known from the intertidal to 25 m.^[1]

Drawing of Doto coronata from Kunstformen der Natur (1904)

Description

The crowned doto is a small (up to 15 mm) pale-bodied nudibranch, with darkly mottled grape-bunch-like clusters of cerata extending in pairs down the body. The rhinophores extend from cup-like sheaths.^[2] May be confused with the feathered doto, Doto pinnatifida, but the cerata of this species are shorter and plumper than those of the feathered doto.

Ecology

The crowned doto feeds on hydroids. Its egg mass is a tightly coiled white spiral of several turns, usually laid on hydroids.

References

1. ^ GOSLINER, T.M. 1987. Nudibranchs of Southern Africa ISBN 0-930118-13-8
2. ^ ZSILAVECZ, G. 2007. Nudibranchs of the Cape Peninsula and False Bay. ISBN 0-620-38054-3

External links