A large soft dorid that reads as a lump of sponge until the mantle edge moves.
A large soft-bodied dorid to about 15 cm, mottled green-brown, olive and black with darker blotches, the whole back covered in rounded tubercles of uneven size. The body is soft enough to slump against the substrate and the mantle margin ripples as it crawls, which is the clearest separation from Asteronotus cespitosus — similar in size and colour but firm, stiff-edged, and sculpted as a raised network rather than as separate warts. At rest it is easily passed over as a lump of sponge or an algae-covered rock.
No radula, as in the rest of the genus: it feeds by external digestion on sponges and takes up their chemistry. The egg mass is a low ruffled ribbon laid on the substrate beside the animal. Recorded from about 3 to 25 m on rubble, dead coral and reef.
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.
