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Phyllidia varicosa
Also known as Varicose Sea Slug, Varicose Nudibranch, Varicose Wart Slug, Warty Sea Slug, Fried Egg Nudibranch, Fried Egg Sea Slug, Scrambled Egg Nudibranch and Scrambled Egg Sea Slug. They feed on hydroids, coral, sponges and sea anemones, and grow to a length of about 12cm.
Found singly or in pairs on coral and rocky reefs amongst sand and rubble areas, at depths of 1 to 30m. Widespread in the Indo-Pacific region.
This specimen measured about 7.5cm.
Spotted on Jan 7, 2012
Submitted on Jan 17, 2012
7 Comments
Glad to help Blogie :-)
You're right, Eric, this is P. varicosa.
Agree with you Blogie. It is quite difficult IDing nudis in general. No expert on them that's why have to rely on visuals from various sources in the web like the sea slug forum, nudipixel and Neville Coleman :-)
You might be right, Eric. It's sooo difficult identifying this. I actually have quite a few of them in my PC and I can't figure out which species they are...
Hi Blogie. Isn't the fried egg nudi P. varicosa? This looks like P. varicosa actually more then P. picta or Fryeria picta (not sure now which one is the accepted scientific name though). See http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/phylvar... and http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/phylvar...
Hmmm... I don't think the bluish tinge of this nudibranch is the same as that found in Chromodoris annae. If by "common feature" you mean the color, nope. There are tens of thousands of nudibranch species and the colors vary a whole lot. :)
same blue as your lovey-dovey pair; is this a common feature of these creatures?