''Chelidonura punctata'' 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 ...

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 ...

, or "headshield slug", 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 * ...

opisthobranch Opisthobranchs () is now an informal name for a large and diverse group of specialized complex gastropods which used to be united in the subclass Opisthobranchia. That taxon is no longer considered to represent a monophyletic grouping. Euopisth ...

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 ...

mollusk 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 e ...

in the family

Aglajidae Aglajidae is a family of often colorful, medium-sized, sea slugs, marine opisthobranch gastropod mollusks. These are not nudibranchs; instead they are headshield slugs, in the clade Cephalaspidea.Bouchet, P. (2012). Aglajidae. Accessed through: ...

.Bouchet, P. (2011). ''Chelidonura punctata'' Eliot, 1903. Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=559044 on 2012-06-11

Distribution

''Chelidonura punctata'' was described from

Zanzibar Zanzibar (; ; ) is an insular semi-autonomous province which united with Tanganyika in 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania. It is an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of many small islands ...

as ''

Chelidonura hirundinina ''Chelidonura hirundinina'' is a species of small and colorful aglajid sea slug, a shell-less opisthobranch gastropod mollusk in the family Aglajidae.Rosenberg, G. (2011). Chelidonura hirundinina (Quoy & Gaimard, 1833). Accessed through: Wor ...

'' var. ''punctata''. It is widespread through the tropical waters of the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by th ...

Description

This species has a maximum size of 30 mm. The background color is dark brown or black and the body is covered with large orange or yellow spots. The margin of the

parapod In invertebrates, the term parapodium ( Gr. ''para'', beyond or beside + ''podia'', feet; plural: parapodia) refers to lateral outgrowths or protrusions from the body. Parapodia are predominantly found in annelids, where they are paired, unjointed ...

s are marked with a thin white line. The two rather long "tails" at the end of the animal are characteristic of the genus ''Chelidonura'', the left one is always longer. ''Chelidonura'' always have well-developed sensory cilia on the anterior edge of the head which are used to find the prey.

Ecology

''Chelidonura punctata'' feeds on acoel flatworms. This headshield slug lives on coral reefs in shallow water.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chelidonura punctata Aglajidae Gastropods described in 1903