Pale pink to violet with white-tipped gills, and it varies enough to look like several species.
A dorid to about 5 cm, the body ranging from near white through pale pink to a deep violet, with a fine opaque white or yellow mantle margin, orange-tipped rhinophores and a gill plume that is dark at the base and tipped in white. The colour range is wide enough that pale and dark animals from the same site look like different species, and the group has been split and lumped repeatedly; several regional forms once carried this name and some have since been described separately.
Feeds on sponges of the family Thorectidae and, like the rest of the genus, concentrates the sponge’s defensive compounds in glands around the mantle rim rather than throughout the body — so the part exposed to a bite is the part loaded with the deterrent. Found on and beside its food sponge from about 5 to 30 m. Slow and untroubled by light, which makes it a straightforward subject; the gills and rhinophores are the parts worth getting sharp.
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.
