A small sacoglossan with black side flaps, an orange-red border and bright yellow patches, on shallow rubble and algal turf.
To 1.2 cm, so this is a small animal and easy to miss. The head is yellow above, sometimes with a white centre, with black sides carrying yellowish spots. The rhinophores are banded: yellow at the base, bright blue in the middle and orange-red at the tip. The side flaps are mostly black with an orange-red border that sends tongue-like projections downward, alternating with large bright yellow rectangular patches outlined in blue. Individual animals vary considerably.
Two related species in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean are the confusion elsewhere; in the Caribbean the orange-red margin with yellow rectangular patches identifies it.
It is a sacoglossan rather than a true nudibranch, and it grazes specific algae on shallow rubble and algal turf between about 3 and 20 m. It is recorded from Bermuda, Florida, the Bahamas and the wider Caribbean, and again in the Canaries, Madeira and Cape Verde.
This entry needs a note about its own history. It previously carried the name Felimare picta and described a large blue-black chromodorid to 20 cm. That was wrong twice over: Felimare picta is a Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic animal with no Caribbean population, and there is no 20 cm blue-and-yellow chromodorid in Florida, the Bahamas or Cayman at all. “Painted elysia” is the established common name of this small sacoglossan, which does occur at all three places, so the entry now describes the animal the name belongs to.
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.
