Salt-and-pepper Nudibranch

Caloria elegans is a species of colorful sea slug, an aeolid nudibranch, a marine gastropod mollusc in the family Facelinidae.

Description

It is translucent clear with a white median line on the posterior foot and white pigmentation on the upper two-thirds of the tapering oral tenatcles and rhinophores. Adults from Britain have irregularly distributed small papillae on the posterior face of the rhinophores but these are usually absent in Mediterranean animals. The ceratal digestive gland duct in British material ranges in colour from pink to creamy white and in Mediterranean animals it can also be brown, orange or red. There is a very characteristic black region at the tip of the digestive gland duct and above it there is an opaque white subapical ring on the ceras, partially obscuring the cnidosac. In Britain it can reach 34 mm in length but in the Mediterranean it rarely reaches 20 mm.

Distribution

This marine species occurs in European waters from the British Isles to the Mediterranean Sea; also off the Canary Islands, the Azores and Madeira.