Magenta and orange cerata in a fan, and it borrows its stings from the hydroid it eats.
An aeolid to about 4 cm, the body translucent pink to magenta and the back carrying clusters of long cerata coloured deep purple at the base, orange in the middle and white at the tip. The rhinophores are annulated — ringed with fine rings — which separates Coryphellina from several similar aeolids with smooth rhinophores. The species has moved between Flabellina and Coryphellina in recent revisions and both names are in circulation.
Feeds on hydroids, and does what aeolids do with them: the stinging cells of the prey pass undischarged through the gut, are carried to sacs at the tips of the cerata and are stored there for the slug’s own defence. That is a specific and remarkable piece of plumbing, not a general nudibranch trait — only the aeolids do it. Found on hydroid colonies on rubble, wreckage and jetty structure from about 3 to 25 m.
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.
