A white ground and an unbroken orange rim set it apart from the blue-and-black group.
A chromodorid to about 4 cm with a white to cream mantle carrying several fine black lines that run the length of the back — usually one down the middle and one or two on each side, sometimes joining at the ends — and a broad orange to yellow band round the whole margin. The gill plume and rhinophores are orange. Ground colour puts it outside the blue-and-black group: Chromodoris annae, C. elisabethina and C. lochi are blue or lavender between the lines, and this animal is white. C. magnifica also carries an orange margin but is twice the size, has much broader black bands, and has a fine white edge outside the orange.
Older Indo-Pacific records under Chromodoris africana and C. quadricolor belong elsewhere. Both are western Indian Ocean and Red Sea animals, and a white, black-lined, orange-rimmed chromodorid photographed in the Coral Triangle is far more likely to be this one. The names still appear on Pacific images in older books and in photo libraries.
Feeds on sponges and holds their compounds in the mantle rim, which is why it crawls in the open by day. Pairs on a single sponge are usual, and white coiled egg ribbons are laid beside them. Recorded from about 3 to 30 m on sponge-covered rubble and rock.
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.
