''Doto amyra'', or the hammerhead doto, is a species of very small or minute sea slug, a nudibranch, a shell-less

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 in the family Dotidae.

Distribution

This species occurs from Alaska to Baja California, Mexico.

Description

This nudibranch reaches a maximum size of 14 mm, but commonly it is under 10 mm in adult size. The body is colourless, but the cerata are coloured due to the digestive glands inside them. The colour of the digestive gland can be creamy yellow to orange-red to brown, depending on the colour of the hydroids that an individual specimen has been eating. Compared with ''

Doto kya ''Doto kya'' is a species of sea slug, a nudibranch, a marine gastropod 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 ...

'' and '' Doto columbiana'' this species lacks any dark pigment on the body.

Ecology

This nudibranch feeds on hydroids. It has been reported apparently feeding on a variety of species including '' Garveia'' sp., Bougainvilliidae, ''

Abietinaria ''Abietinaria'' is a genus of hydrozoans belonging to the family Sertulariidae. The genus has almost cosmopolitan distribution In biogeography, cosmopolitan distribution is the term for the range of a taxon that extends across all or most of ...

'' spp., Sertulariidae as well as a plumulariid hydroid. This may be evidence of a species complex rather than a single species. It in unusual in having a form of development where the eggs are large compared with most '' Doto'' species and therefore larvae which settle after only a few days in the plankton.Goddard, J.H.R. 1996. Lecithotrophic development in ''Doto amyra'' (Nudibranchia: Dendronotacea), with a review of developmental mode in the genus. ''The Veliger'' 39(1):43-54.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q3141377 Dotidae Gastropods described in 1961