''Doto escatllari'' is a species of sea slug, a nudibranch, a

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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 Dotidae.

Distribution

This species was first described from the

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. It has subsequently been reported from the Caribbean coast of

Costa Rica Costa Rica (, ; ; literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica ( es, República de Costa Rica), is a country in the Central American region of North America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the no ...

,Ortea J. (2001). "El género ''Doto'' Oken, 1815 (Mollusca: Nudibranchia) en el mer Caribe: Historia natural y descripción de nuevas especies". ''Avicennia'' Suppl. 3
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46. page 21. BarbadosValdés Á., Hamann J., Behrens D. W. & DuPont A. (2006). ''Caribbean Sea Slugs''. Sea Challengers Natural History Books, Etc., Gig Harbor, Washington, pp. 216-217. . and Panama.

Description

The body is short and narrow. Rhinophores are smooth and with opaque white dots. Rhinophoral sheaths are with small frontal extensions. Cerata are large with rounded tubercles; apical tubercles much larger than the rest. The cerata are translucent blue, and the ceratal tubercles have no dark spots and contain dense concentrations of rounded hyaline glandular structures. Background color is translucent gray with a series of dark brown spots on the dorsum. Cerata are with dark brown branches of the digestive gland and bluish tubercles. This dendronotid nudibranch is translucent white with mid-sized black spots scattered over the top and sides of the body. In the internal base of the ceratal peduncle there is a black mark below the three-lobed transparent pseudobranch.''Doto escatllari'' account at INBio. Species of Costa Rica
/ref> The maximum recorded body length is 5 mm or 6 mm.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.

Ecology

Minimum recorded depth is 1 m. Maximum recorded depth is 4 m. ''Doto escatllari'' was found associated with small hydroids of the family Sertulariidae; these are probably its prey.

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=Q13596859 Dotidae Gastropods described in 1998 Fauna of the Caribbean