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

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

of colorful

sea slug Sea slug is a common name for some Marine biology, marine invertebrates with varying levels of resemblance to terrestrial Slug, slugs. Most creatures known as sea slugs are gastropods, i.e. they are Sea snail, sea snails (marine gastropod moll ...

, a dorid

nudibranch Nudibranchs () are a group of soft-bodied marine gastropod molluscs, belonging to the order Nudibranchia, that shed their shells after their larval stage. They are noted for their often extraordinary colours and striking forms, and they have b ...

, a shell-less marine

gastropod Gastropods (), commonly known as slugs and snails, belong to a large Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda (). This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, freshwater, and fro ...

mollusk Mollusca is a phylum of protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum after Arthropoda. The ...

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 trees and shrubs in the family Rutaceae. Plants in the genus produce citrus fruits, including important crops such as oranges, mandarins, lemons, grapefruits, pomelos, and limes. ''Citrus'' is nativ ...

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'', 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 Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

from

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

Baja California Baja California, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California, is a state in Mexico. It is the northwesternmost of the 32 federal entities of Mexico. Before becoming a state in 1952, the area was known as the North Territory of B ...

. It eats

sponges Sponges or sea sponges are primarily marine invertebrates of the animal phylum Porifera (; meaning 'pore bearer'), a basal clade and a sister taxon of the diploblasts. They are sessile filter feeders that are bound to the seabed, and ar ...

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 In anatomy, a tubercle (literally 'small tuber', Latin for 'lump') is any round nodule, small eminence, or warty outgrowth found on external or internal organs of a plant or an animal. In plants A tubercle is generally a wart-like projection, b ...

. 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 (, ; ), make up one of the oldest groups of eukaryotic algae. The Rhodophyta comprises one of the largest Phylum, phyla of algae, containing over 7,000 recognized species within over 900 Genus, genera amidst ongoing taxon ...

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

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

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