''Doto maculata'' is a species of sea slug, a 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 Dotidae''.

Distribution

This species was first described from Devon, United Kingdom. It was re-described and separated from synonymy with ''

Doto coronata ''Doto coronata'' is a species of small sea slug or nudibranch, a shell-less marine (ocean), marine gastropod mollusc in the family (biology), family Dotidae.Gofas, S. (2011)''Doto coronata'' (Gmelin, 1791).Accessed through: World Register of Mar ...

'' by Lemche in 1976.Lemche H. (1976). New British species of ''Doto'' Oken, 1815. ''Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom'' 56: 691-706

Description

This nudibranch is translucent white with dark red spots on the ceratal tubercles. It is one of the smaller representatives of the ''

'' group of species. One of its most distinctive features is the length of the tubercles on the cerata.Picton, B.E. & Morrow, C.C. (2015)
''Doto maculata'' (Montagu, 1804).
n/nowiki> Encyclopedia of Marine Life of Britain and Ireland.

Ecology

''Doto maculata'' feeds on the hydroid ''Halopteris catharina'', family

Halopterididae Halopterididae is a family of hydrozoans. According to the World Register of Marine Species, the following genera belong to the family Halopterididae: *'' Anarthroclada'' Naumov, 1955 *'' Antennella'' Allman, 1877 *'' Antennellopsis'' Jäderhol ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q5042239 Dotidae Gastropods described in 1804 Taxa named by George Montagu (naturalist)