''Peltodoris nobilis'', commonly called the sea lemon, false sea lemon, or the noble dorid, 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 ...

of colorful

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 ...

, a dorid 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 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 Discodorididae.Gofas, S.; Rosenberg, G. (2015). ''Peltodoris nobilis'' (MacFarland, 1905). In: MolluscaBase (2015). Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=594422 on 2016-12-14 This species was previously placed in the genus ''Anisodoris'' and was known for a long time as ''Anisodoris nobilis''. Subsequently it was known as ''Diaulula nobilis''. This animal gives off a pleasant

citrus ''Citrus'' is a genus of flowering plant, flowering trees and shrubs in the rue family, Rutaceae. Plants in the genus produce citrus fruits, including important crops such as Orange (fruit), oranges, Lemon, lemons, grapefruits, pomelos, and lim ...

smell when it is handled, and this (along with its yellow coloration) is what is responsible for the common name "sea lemon". Its diet includes

Mycale adhaerens ''Mycale adhaerens'', the purple scallop sponge, is a species of marine demosponge in the family Mycalidae. ''Mycale'' is a large genus and this species is placed in the subgenus ''Aegogropila'' making its full name, ''Mycale'' (''Aegogropila'') ...

, the purple scallop sponge

Distribution

This species occurs in the Eastern

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

from

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...

Baja California Baja California (; 'Lower California'), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California), is a state in Mexico. It is the northernmost and westernmost of the 32 federal entities of Mex ...

. It eats

sponges Sponges, the members of the phylum Porifera (; meaning 'pore bearer'), are a basal animal clade as a sister of the diploblasts. They are multicellular organisms that have bodies full of pores and channels allowing water to circulate through ...

Description

This nudibranch is variable in color, from a very pale yellow through a rich yellow, to a rather dark orange. The gill rosette is tinged with white at the tips. The dorsum is covered in tubercles. There are a number of dark spots on the dorsum, but never on the tubercles themselves. These dark spots vary a lot in number from one individual to the next. This animal can grow to be as large as 200 mm, or nearly 8 inches in length. Image:Anisodoris nobilis.jpg, A dark yellow ''Peltodoris nobilis'' crawling on

red algae Red algae, or Rhodophyta (, ; ), are one of the oldest groups of eukaryotic algae. The Rhodophyta also comprises one of the largest phyla of algae, containing over 7,000 currently recognized species with taxonomic revisions ongoing. The majority ...

Image:Sea lemon in tide pools.jpg, ''Peltodoris nobilis'',

Moss Beach Moss Beach is a coastal census-designated place in San Mateo County, California, with a year 2020 census population of 3,214. Located in Moss Beach are the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve, a marine sanctuary; the Half Moon Bay Airport, the historic Mo ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

References

External links

* Behrens D.W., 1980, ''Pacific Coast Nudibranchs: a guide to the opisthobranchs of the northeastern Pacific'', Sea Challenger Books, Washington
Dayrat B. 2010. ''A monographic revision of discodorid sea slugs (Gastropoda, Opisthobranchia, Nudibranchia, Doridina).'' Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences, Series 4, vol. 61, suppl. I, 1-403, 382 figs.
* Sea Slug Forum, species fact sheet

* Slug Site

{{Taxonbar, from=Q30004771 Discodorididae Gastropods described in 1905