At 10 mm in length (a little less than 0.5 inch), the Jupiter Dondice, Dondice jupiteriensis García-Mendez, Padula, and Valdés, 2022, is one of the smallest (and most attractive) local species of nudibranchs (shell-less gastropods). The Jupiter Dondice has “moustache-like,” oral tentacles (left on image.) These tentacles can reach more than half the slug’s body length! The rhinophores, sensorial projections behind the oral tentacles, have irregular arrangements of rings on their upper half. The cerata (body projections) are elongated, pointed at their end, and are more strongly colored than the slug’s body, with orange rings and bluish extremities. The Jupiter Dondice in the photo was spotted a few years ago near the Sanibel Causeway (Southwest Florida).
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