Pink tubercles in rows between black lines, on a firm phyllidiid of sponge-covered rubble.
A firm, almost rubbery dorid to about 5 cm, the mantle pale pink to grey-pink and crossed lengthways by three or four black lines, with rows of low rounded pink tubercles standing along the ridges between them. The rhinophores are black. As in the rest of the family there is no gill plume on the back, the animal breathing instead through folds under the mantle margin, and that absence places any slug of this shape and stiffness in the phyllidiids at a glance.
Within the family the separation is done on the tubercles and the lines. Phyllidiella pustulosa carries its pink tubercles in irregular clusters on a black ground with no continuous pale lines; Phyllidiella nigra is black with rows of pink to white tubercles and a paler margin. Black rhinophores are usual in Phyllidiella, where most of the Phyllidia on the same ground carry yellow or orange ones.
Like the other phyllidiids it feeds on sponges and holds compounds taken from them in the skin. It is out by day as well as at night, moving slowly over sponge-covered rock and rubble, and it is one of the easier small slugs to photograph because it does not retract or hurry. Recorded from about 3 to 30 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.
