Melibe leonina
| Hooded nudibranch | |
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| Melibe leonina | |
| 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: | Tethydidae |
| Genus: | Melibe |
| Species: | M. leonina |
| Binomial name | |
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Melibe leonina Gould, 1852 |
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| Synonyms | |
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Melibe leonina, common names the "hooded nudibranch", "lion's mane nudibranch", or "lion's mane sea slug" is a species of predatory sea slug, specifically a nudibranch, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Tethydidae.
This species occurs on the west coast of North America, from Alaska to Baja California.
This nudibranch is up to 102 mm long, 25 mm wide, and 51 mm across the expanded oral hood.
The body of this nudibranch is translucent. It is usually colorless to pale yellow or green, with opaque brown hepatic diverticula. It has a large expandable oral hood, fringed with sensory tentacles, which it opens and throws forward in order to catch food. A single pair of rhinophores on the hood are rounded and earlike. 4-6 pairs of flat paddle shaped cerata run along its dorsum in two rows.
Melibe leonina exudes a sweet fruity aroma when it is removed from the water, or when numerous individuals are kept together in captivity. Because of their smell and the way they expand their oral hoods while attached to kelp and eelgrass, a group of Melibe is called a "bouquet".
Found on eelgrass and other seaweeds near low tide and below, and in kelp forest in deeper water.
Melibe leonina is carnivorous and hunts for food, while attached to grasses, by extending its oral hood out and downward like a net. When the ventral surface of the hood contacts a small animal, the hood rapidly closes and the fringing tentacles overlap, holding in the prey then forcing the whole animal into the mouth. Prey include amphipods, copepods, mysids, other small crustaceans, small mollusks, small jellyfish and ctenophores, larvae of other invertebrates and in some cases small fish.
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Wikipedia