Deep blue with a yellow margin and pale spots, on sponge on deeper reef.
To 6 cm. Dark blue with yellow lines running lengthways along the body, each line edged in black. The rhinophores are purple-blue. The mantle margin is white with black spots and a yellow border, and the rear of the foot is blue with black spots and yellow lines.
Several blue-and-yellow chromodorids in the Caribbean look like this and separating them is genuinely difficult, which is worth saying plainly. The Brazilian species of the group has blue rhinophores and blue gills with dark interiors. Another Caribbean species has a gold mesh pattern rather than separate lines, and purple-blue rhinophores.
It feeds on a blue sponge of the genus Dysidea and lives on reef and hard bottom between about 3 and 18 m, with records possibly as deep as 70. It is part of a species complex whose colour-based taxonomy has repeatedly failed under genetic testing, so any name in this group should be read as provisional.
The Florida record is well supported. The Bahamas and Cayman records are not confirmed in the sources consulted; they may be right, but they are not proven.
Ratings are per location: 1 means found on most dives that look for it, 5 means a handful of records. Where enough dives have been logged the figure is calculated from them; otherwise it is an editorial estimate, and says so. We publish habitat and destination, not the dive site.
