''Polybranchia orientalis'' 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 ...

sacoglossa Sacoglossa, commonly known as the sacoglossans or the "solar-powered sea slugs", are a superorder of small sea slugs and sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks that belong to the clade Heterobranchia. Sacoglossans live by ingesting the cellular ...

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 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 * ...

opisthobranch Opisthobranchs () is now an informal name for a large and diverse group of specialized complex gastropods which used to be united in the subclass Opisthobranchia. That taxon is no longer considered to represent a monophyletic grouping. Euopisth ...

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

Caliphyllidae Caliphyllidae is a taxonomic family of sacoglossan sea slugs. These are marine opisthobranch gastropod mollusks in the clade Sacoglossa. This family has no subfamilies. Genera There are five genera in the family Caliphyllidae: * '' Caliphylla ...

.Bouchet, P. (2011). Polybranchia orientalis (Kelaart, 1858). Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=494520 on 2011-04-12

Distribution

This species occurs in the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by th ...

and the

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 ...

References

* Jensen K.R. (2007) ''Biogeography of the Sacoglossa (Mollusca, Opisthobranchia)''. Bonner Zoologische Beiträge 55:255–281

External links

SeaSlug Forum info
Caliphyllidae Gastropods described in 1858 {{Caliphyllidae-stub