Jolly Green Giant

Miamira sinuata (Ceratosoma sinuatum) is a species of colorful dorid nudibranch, a sea slug, a shell-less marine gastropod mollusk in the family Chromodorididae. This species is found in the Indo-Pacific.

Description

The body is stiff, long and narrow with a long tail. The stiff mantle has regular undulating lobes along the edge of the mantle from front to end. The lobes are armed with glands that secrete distasteful substances to discourage predators. There is a large lobe in front of the feathery gills on its back. The anterior end of the mantle is trilobed with the central lobe being much longer than the other two. There are four lateral lobes on each side of the body bearing a number of small tubercles that are clustered together. The background colour ranges from bright green to dull purplish brown and the whole body is covered with low rounded yellow or orange tubercles and some blue spots or reticulations. Both the gills and the rhinophores are translucent greenish or brownish - depending on the background colour - and have scattered white spots.

Distribution

Tropical and subtropical Indo-West Pacific to Solomon Islands, also Japan and Hawaii.

Biology

It feeds on sponges.