''Ardeadoris cruenta'' is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

of very colourful

sea slug Sea slug is a common name for some marine invertebrates with varying levels of resemblance to terrestrial slugs. Most creatures known as sea slugs are gastropods, i.e. they are sea snails (marine gastropod mollusks) that over evolutionary t ...

, a dorid nudibranch, a

marine Marine is an adjective meaning of or pertaining to the sea or ocean. Marine or marines may refer to: Ocean * Maritime (disambiguation) * Marine art * Marine biology * Marine debris * Marine habitats * Marine life * Marine pollution Military * ...

gastropod The gastropods (), commonly known as snails and slugs, belong to a large taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda (). This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, from freshwater, and from land. T ...

mollusc Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is esti ...

in the family Chromodorididae.Bouchet, P. (2012)
''Ardeadoris cruenta''.
Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species on 2012-06-18 Its name is derived from the feminine form of the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

word ''cruentus'', which means "stained with blood" and is a reference to the red spots on its upper dorsum. It was transferred to the genus ''Ardeadoris'' on the basis of DNA evidence.

Distribution

This species was described from Osprey Island,

Great Barrier Reef The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over over an area of approximately . The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, ...

, Australia, in the tropical Western Pacific Ocean. It has also been recorded from the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

, the Lembeh Strait in northern

Sulawesi Sulawesi (), also known as Celebes (), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the world's eleventh-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Mindanao and the Sulu Ar ...

East Timor East Timor (), also known as Timor-Leste (), officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is an island country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the exclave of Oecusse on the island's north-weste ...

and the

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its capita ...

. This species of nudibranch is not common.

Description

''Ardeadoris cruenta'' has a pale-lemon colored body with a bright yellow and white lined frilly mantle and foot. There are red dots in a circular pattern on its dorsum next to the mantle edge. Both its rhinophores and gills have the same pale-lemon color as its body, although there is some color variation among individuals. It reaches a length of at least 50 mm. This species has similar coloring to the seaslug '' Ardeadoris rubroannulata'', although that species lacks the red dots present in ''Ardeadoris cruenta''.

Ecology

Like other Chromodorids, this species feeds on

sponges Sponges, the members of the phylum Porifera (; meaning 'pore bearer'), are a basal animal clade as a sister of the diploblasts. They are multicellular organisms that have bodies full of pores and channels allowing water to circulate through ...

.Rudman, W.B., 2006 (Jul 28
Comment on Beautiful chromodorid from East Timor by Brian Francisco.
essage in/nowiki> Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q4787860 Chromodorididae Gastropods described in 1986