''Dondice occidentalis'' 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 ...

, an aeolid 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 ...

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

Facelinidae The Facelinidae are a Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic family (biology), family of colorful sea slugs. These are specifically aeolid nudibranchs. They are marine (ocean), marine gastropod molluscs.Bouchet, P. (2012). Facelinidae. Accessed through: W ...

Taxonomy

According to Gonzalez et al. (2013), ''Dondice occidentalis'' and '' Dondice parguerensis'' probably represent an example of incipient

sympatric speciation Sympatric speciation is the evolution of a new species from a surviving ancestral species while both continue to inhabit the same geographic region. In evolutionary biology and biogeography, sympatric and sympatry are terms referring to organi ...

. Molecular analyses support partially the differentiation of these species, but were inconclusive, being based only on two genes which are less variable than the COI barcoding gene normally used to distinguish closely related species. Further research is needed in order to resolve this, but COI sequences on GenBank suggest that there could be three species within this species complex.Goodheart, J.A., Bazinet, A.L., Valdes, A., Collins, A.G. and Cummings, M.P. 2017
Prey preference follows phylogeny: evolutionary dietary patterns within the marine gastropod group Cladobranchia (Gastropoda:Heterobranchia: Nudibranchia).
BMC Evolutionary Biology 17 (1), 221 (2017)

Distribution

Distribution of ''Dondice occidentalis'' includes Florida, Mexico, Belize, Costa Rica, Colombia, Venezuela, Curaçao, Bonaire, Venezuela, Bermudas, Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Jamaica, Turks and Caicos, Grenada, Sint Maarten, Martinique, Trinidad, Brazil and Panama.

Description

The body is elongate, tapering toward the posterior end. Rhinophores are annulate and long. Oral tentacles are longer than the rhinophores. Cerata are arranged in clusters along two rows on the dorsum. Background color is translucent gray with a yellow or orange median line of variable width, running from the head to the anterior end, between the rhinophores. There is sometimes present a white or blue broken line down the dorsal mid-line from behind the rhinophores to the posterior end of the body. Opaque white spots are sometimes present on the dorsum. Oral tentacles are translucent or light blue at the base, becoming white towards the tips. Cerata are translucent gray, often with large blue or white bands covering the upper two-thirds of each ceras. The maximum recorded body length is 50 mm.

Habitat

Recorded at depths from the surface to 26 metres.Welch J. J. (2010). "The “Island Rule” and Deep-Sea Gastropods: Re-Examining the Evidence". '' PLoS ONE'' 5(1): e8776. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0008776. This species was found on hydroids in Panama feeding on hydroids of the genus '' Eudendrium'' and apparently the bryozoan '' Amathia''. It easily sheds the cerata when it is disturbed.

References

This article incorporates Creative Commons (CC-BY-4.0) text from the referenceGoodheart J. A., Ellingson R. A., Vital X. G., Galvão Filho H. C., McCarthy J. B., Medrano S. M., Bhave V. J., García-Méndez K., Jiménez L. M., López G. & Hoover C. A. (2016). "Identification guide to the heterobranch sea slugs (Mollusca: Gastropoda) from Bocas del Toro, Panama". ''Marine Biodiversity Records'' 9(1): 56. {{Taxonbar, from=Q3713827 Facelinidae Gastropods described in 1925