Dorididae

Sea lemon is a loosely applied common name for a group of medium-sized to large shell-less colorful sea slugs or nudibranchs, specifically dorid nudibranchs in the taxonomic family Dorididae and other closely related families. These are marine gastropod mollusks.

Sea lemon
A live individual of Doris odhneri, head end towards the right
Mating Doris montereyensis
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Gastropoda
Subclass: Heterobranchia
Order: Nudibranchia
Suborder: Doridina
Superfamily: Doridoidea
Family: Dorididae
Rafinesque, 1815
Genera

See text

Synonyms

Glossodorididae Thiele, 1929

The Monterey sea lemon is Doris montereyensis and the mottled pale sea lemon is Diaulula lentiginosa.

The common name sea lemon probably comes from these animal's visual similarity to a lemon based on such qualities as the roughened skin, the oval form when seen from above, and the common but not inevitable orange to pale yellow coloration.

Description

These dorid nudibranchs can be large (up to 20 cm), rather flattened, and oval in shape when seen from above. They have two hornlike projections (rhinophores) on the head, and a rosette-like tuft of gills on the back of the animal. The mantle is sometimes sprinkled with black dots, and it is covered in small bumps, which are called tubercles.

Life habits

Sea lemons feed on sponges. They lay ribbons of white or yellow eggs. Taxonomically the Dorididae is a family of several genera, the dorids named after the mythological ancient Greek sea nymph Doris. (See Ovidius, Metamorphoses 2.6)

Genera

Genera within the family Dorididae include:[1]

Genera brought into synonymy
gollark: Maybe the ND section should have my egg time finder extension thing? It's pinned in the <#331291747059630082> channel.
gollark: Apparently I'm hatchling-locked for another 21 hours. Annoying!
gollark: It is very convenient though. It's hatched in 10 minutes of hatcherying and autorefreshing.
gollark: I really wonder who thought it was a good idea to dump their low-time (2d10h) egg with plenty of views into the AP.
gollark: If only I actually had the reflexes and low-latency internet connection needed to catch hatchlings...

References
  1. Bouchet, P. (2010). Dorididae Rafinesque, 1815. In: MolluscaBase (2016). Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species on 2016-12-04.
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