Faithful sea slug

Goniobranchus fidelis

''Goniobranchus fidelis'', also commonly known as the faithful sea slug, is a species of colourful sea slug, a dorid nudibranch, a marine gastropod mollusc in the family Chromodorididae.
One-Horn-Nudibranch This small sized Nudibranch of around 1 cm seems to have an oddity with just a single Rhinopore. Anilao,Batangas,Faithful Sea Slug,Goniobranchus fidelis,Nudibranch,Philippines

Appearance

The faithful sea slug can reach more than 25 mm length.
The body of the animal can be described in two distinct parts: the foot and the mantle.
The foot is stretched and almost covered by the edges of the wide mantle, it is cream in colour.
The colour pattern of the mantle is marked by a creamy white area with scalloped edges.
The whole wide margin of the mantle is orange to red, a burgundy like border, with a variable thickness from one animal to the other, delimiting the two coloured areas.
The rhinophores are laminated, contractile and greyish color, whose intensity varies from one animal to another with lighter colour at the tip.
Gills have the same colour as the rhinophores but they are retractable.
Goniobranchus fidelis Apo Island, Oct 2, 2012.
The mantle is creamy white with a broad orange band around the mantle edge and a thin wine red line between the white and the orange. On the inner edge of the orange band there are usually a series of tongue-like patches running into the white region. In some cases they are almost all wine red while in others there is only a slight thickening of the red band. Grows to 20-25mm long.
 Geotagged,Goniobranchus fidelis,Philippines

Distribution

Distribution of ''Goniobranchus fidelis'' include tropical Indo-West Pacific and Red Sea.Rudman, W.B., 1999 [In] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney.
Its habitat is the external reef area as well on the top or on the slope up to 20 m deep with a preference for dead corals.

Behavior

This sea slug is benthic and diurnal, moves without any fear of being taken for a prey, because of the presence of defensive glands distributed in its body tissues and shown to the potential predators through its warning coloration.

Habitat

Distribution of ''Goniobranchus fidelis'' include tropical Indo-West Pacific and Red Sea.Rudman, W.B., 1999 [In] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney.
Its habitat is the external reef area as well on the top or on the slope up to 20 m deep with a preference for dead corals.

References:

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Taxonomy
KingdomAnimalia
DivisionMollusca
ClassGastropoda
OrderNudibranchia
FamilyChromodorididae
GenusGoniobranchus
SpeciesG. fidelis
Photographed in
Philippines