Doto coronata

Doto coronata
The nudibranch Doto coronata, from the coast of Wimereux (Pas-de-Calais, France)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Gastropoda
(unranked): clade Heterobranchia

clade Euthyneura
clade Nudipleura
clade Nudibranchia
clade Dexiarchia
clade Cladobranchia
clade Dendronotida

Superfamily: Tritonioidea
Family: Dotidae
Genus: Doto
Species: D. coronata
Binomial name
Doto coronata
(Gmelin, 1791)
Synonyms[1]
  • Doris coronata Gmelin, 1791 (basionym)
  • Doto costae Trinchese, 1881

Doto coronata is a species of small sea slug or nudibranch, a shell-less marine gastropod mollusc in the family Dotidae. [1] It is the type species of the genus Doto.

Distribution

The type locality for this species is on the Dutch coast. A specimen from near Goes, Eastern Scheldt, Zeeland was designated as a neotype in a recent review of the genus Doto.[2] It has been reported elsewhere in the North Atlantic Ocean (European waters, Canada, Gulf of Maine) and the Mediterranean Sea (Greece) but many records are likely to be of sibling species.[3] It was erroneously reported from around the South African coast where it is found from the Atlantic coast to Knysna[4] and this species has been described as Doto africoronata.[2] It is known from the intertidal to more than 25 m.

Drawing of Doto coronata from Kunstformen der Natur (1904)

Description

This species is a small (up to 15 mm) nudibranch, with grape-bunch-like clusters of cerata extending in pairs along the sides of the body. In all Doto the rhinophores extend from cup-like sheaths. Doto coronata is translucent white in colour with mottling of dark red on the back and sides of the body. The ceratal tubercles are tipped with round red spots. There is a patch of dark red pigment on the inner faces of the cerata.[3]

Doto coronata sensu lato

Before 1976 a number of species were called by the name Doto coronata and the process of splitting this complex into species was started by Henning Lemche.[5] Species with translucent white bodies and red or black spots on the cerata which were formerly identified as Doto coronata include:

Ecology

Doto coronata feeds on hydroids, especially Obelia spp. Campanulariidae and Sertularia cupressina Sertulariidae. Its egg mass is a white ribbon laid in a zigzag pattern, usually on or at the base of the hydroids it is feeding on. It is a host of the ectoparasitic crustaceans Doridicola agilis Leydig, 1853 and Splanchnotrophus brevipes Hancock & Norman, 1863 and the endoparasitic crustacean Lomanoticola brevipes (Hancock & Norman, 1863)

References

  1. 1 2 Gofas, S. (2011). Doto coronata (Gmelin, 1791). Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species on 2012-05-17
  2. 1 2 Shipman, C. & Gosliner, T. (2015). Molecular and morphological systematics of Doto Oken, 1851 (Gastropoda: Heterobranchia), with descriptions of five new species and a new genus. Zootaxa 3973 (1) DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3973.1.2
  3. 1 2 Doto coronata Picton, B.E. & Morrow, C.C. (2010). [In] Encyclopedia of Marine Life of Britain and Ireland.
  4. Gosliner, T.M. (1987). Nudibranchs of Southern Africa. ISBN 0-930118-13-8
  5. Lemche, H. M. (1976). New British species of Doto Oken, 1815 (Mollusca: Opisthobranchia). Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 56(3):691-706, pls. 1-3.
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