Category: Feeding, Diet & Habitat

Above: Doto rosacea, displaying all the standard Dendronotina characteristics –  large rhinophoral sheaths, branching appendages arranged down the lateral sides of the notum and feeding upon hydroids. DELVING INTO DENDRONOTINIDS If you have been reading the NudiNotes and Book Chapters that have been posted so far on NudibranchDomain you will have seen the word dendronotinids

A generalized table indicating the diet of the major sea slug groups. Click the image below to view the full table (opens in a Google Sheet in a separate tab) About the table The above is just an image for navigation purposes and will not show the latest revisions/corrections. Use the link to access the

HUNTER SEA SLUGS Brittle Stars, Worms, Bivalves and Crustaceans as prey In this NudiNote on sea slug feeding we look at those that are hunters, those sea slugs that actively track down their mobile animal prey as opposed to the majority of sea slugs that are consumers of sessile, attached (or drifting) prey. Rather than

More Colonial Consumers Sea Slugs that graze upon Ascidians, Bryozoans and Entoprocts It’s been mentioned before that the feeding preferences of sea slugs, across the entire group, encompass an extremely diverse range of food types, but conversely, each species usually has an extremely specific diet. In this NudiNote, three other phyla from the Animal Kingdom,

“The Sting’s the Thing” Sea Slug Predators of Anemones and Hydroids Have you ever inadvertently brushed past a stinging hydroid during a dive and some small part of your skin, being exposed, receives a searing sting? Or perhaps you have been enjoying the surf and a bluebottle’s tentacles have wrapped around your arm or chest

Phyllidiid Suctorial Feeding We are occasionally fortunate enough to encounter and record a nudibranch feeding, that is, to actually see that they are feeding, because most often the process is hidden from us beneath them. In those instances, with the sponge-feeders, the buccal mass can be seen protruding and pressed against the sponge tissue that

SPONGIVORES – The Sponge Eaters Sponges (Phylum Porifera) are one of simplest and oldest of multicellular animals. They have the least complex body form of the multicellular animals. Only a few specialist predators are known to be exclusively spongivores, that is, to have a sponge diet and these are disproportionally represented in the sea slugs.

Slugivores – Sea Slugs That Prey On Sea Slugs The great majority of sea slug species are carnivorous, meaning they prey on animal life rather than plant life. It is often not appreciated that sponges, bryozoans and hydroids etc. although primitive life forms, and appear to grow like plants, are animal life forms all the

  The Algae Grazers (Header image above – Petalifera ramosa) It has long been established that the algae are the base upon which the marine food web is built and sustained. Algae are an important food source for numerous marine animals across many different phyla and the sea slugs are no exception. (Algae, in the

Many people are surprised to learn that some nudibranch sea slugs are actually corallivorous, that is they feed upon corals. Those that keep corals in aquariums however know only too well the havoc certain nudibranchs can cause particular corals. Corals don’t look to be particularly appetising but a little explanation of their anatomy will help.

Across the entire group, the sea slugs have an extremely diverse source of food types, but conversely, each species usually has an extremely specific diet restricted in many cases to one or only few, usually closely related, prey species. A list of the animal types preyed upon reveals that all the major invertebrate phyla are

The Aglajidae are a carnivorous group of headshield sea slugs that actively hunt their prey. They are mostly fast moving in order to capture other sea slugs and polychaete worms. They are well-adapted for the task with clusters of sensory bristles located on the front of their broad headshield, on mounds both sides of the

UNIQUELY UNITED BUT DECEPTIVE DISPLAY The Suctorial Feeding Porostomata Nudibranchs In a previous NudiNote – The Little Scraper – the radula of sea slugs was discussed. Mention was also made of those sea slugs that do not possess a radula. Among the dorid nudibranchs in particular, the radula has only been lost once along their

The Little Scraper Nearly all the sea slugs, just like nearly all the molluscs (except the bivalves), possess a radula in the buccal cavity for feeding. The radula is used not unlike a combination of teeth and tongue to rasp at, puncture, slash or grip the prey for ingestion. Salivary glands assist the action of

CONGRESS ON CODIUM All of the sea slugs in the Sacoglossa order are herbivorous, well nearly all, a very few prey on the eggs of other sea slugs. However, that great majority that feed on plants do so by puncturing the cell walls of algae and sucking out the contents. The sacoglossans are a very