Bus Stop Nudibranch

Goniobranchus hintuanensis (also Chromodoris hintuanensis) is a species of colorful sea slug, a dorid nudibranch, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Chromodorididae.

Description

The ground colour is creamy brown. The mantle has numerous cream-coloured bumps and has a deep purple margin. Also it has few small white rounded nodules on the mantle, each surrounded by a ring of deep magenta, purple or black.

The gills and rhinophores are a translucent reddish purple colour edged with a dark line of the same colour. It flaps the large anterior mantle skirt up and down when crawling, and the underside is purple.

Specimens from the Indian Ocean differ in having yellow spots in the paler patches of the dorsal pattern.

Distribution

In the Indo-Pacific from Sri Lanka, Thailand, Burma to the Philippines, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, the Marshall Islands and Solomon Islands, also Japan.

Habitat

It feeds on sponges.