A little help on a slug ID

[DolbyDinosaur]

I found one of these in my tank last night (not my pic, but identical):

http://i.imgur.com/rDbYWGT.jpg

The pic is from wetwebmedia, but they didn't have an ID on it.

Some behavior I've noticed:

- It can vary its color from muddy puke brown to a near violet.
- It swims much like a spanish dancer nudi, alighting its body in a series of contracting motions.
- It moves fairly fast.
- I found it underneath a coral which was set on top of my sand.
- I've had it for who knows how long with no visible sign of damage to my mostly LPS and soft 29 gallon tank.

Any clues would be nice. I would be delighted if it was some sort of algae-eating sea hare instead of a coral munching nudi...

Thanks for taking a look at my little beastie!

[pagojoe]

It's probably a Bornella species, or something in the same superfamily Dendronotina. They can swim...

All the ones I'm familiar with feed on hydroids.

Cheers,



Don

[DolbyDinosaur]

You know, I have clicked on nearly every image link I could find on seaslugforum.net and was starting to lose hope. Dendronotina brings up a lot of close hits on google. Is there any specific identifying characteristics I should be looking for or is it something I'd have to dissect the little guy for a firm ID?

Thanks for the help btw!

Edit: The closest I can find is this guy: http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/marioliv

Any clues as to the diet? I haven't seen any bite marks out of my corals and he must have been in there for months.

[LeslieH]

Small bright blue spots like those are found in the shaggy sea hare Bursatella leachi. Take a look at the photos on this page and see if that's what you have - http://www.seaslugforum.net/showall/bursleac

[alexander_ktn]

In my opinion it is a tritoniid species - Marionia or Tritonia come to mind, as you stated before.
Those sea slugs often look like the corals they eat - in this case probably some sort of clavulariid or (encrusting) gorgonian.