Black-margined Nudibranch
Doriprismatica atromarginata
Spanish shawl
Flabellinopsis iodinea
About
The Spanish shawl is a small, brightly coloured sea slug that looks like a scrap of purple silk trailing orange fringes. It grows to about 6 cm.
Also known as: flabellinopsis iodinea, flabellinopsis iodinea (j.g.cooper, 1863), spanish shawl nudibranch
- Length
- 6 cm
- Depth
- up to 33 m
Appearance
Its body is deep purple, covered in finger-like orange projections called cerata, with a pair of scarlet, horn-like sensory organs called rhinophores on its head. All three colours come from a single pigment in the slug's tissue, which shows up differently in each body part.
Habitat
Spanish shawls live on rocky reefs along the west coast of North America, from British Columbia down into Mexico and as far as the Galapagos Islands. They are found from the shallows down to about 33 m.
Did you know?
When threatened, the Spanish shawl can swim away by flexing its whole body in a rippling, side-to-side motion, pushing off the seabed and drifting through open water.
Log it in Into the Blue
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