Taxonomy

Rarity

Abundance rates how many are in suitable habitat. Find difficulty rates how hard it is to locate one on a daylight snorkel or freedive through 50 ft. A higher find score means a harder search. The rarity category also reflects the kind of encounter; it is not an average of the 2 scores.

Seasonality

Location

Spotted dorids live on rock in the intertidal zone and in the shallow subtidal. They feed on bryozoans, small colonial animals that grow as crusts over rock, so they are found where those colonies grow.

Most are about 2 inches long, and a rare animal reaches about 7 inches. The color varies widely: the body runs from pale, see-through yellow through rich yellow, orange and red to dark brown. What stays constant is the spotting. The back is covered in raised white spots, and those spots are the field mark that gives the animal its name.

Deep Dive

A nudibranch that comes in so many colors is hard to learn from a single photo. The spotted dorid can be pale yellow on one rock and dark brown on the next. In adults, the raised white spots are the mark that holds across every color form.

Much about this animal is still unwritten here. The sources read for this page say nothing about its breeding or how long it lives, and nothing reliable about how young animals look. The young are described in 2 sources that could not be opened when this page was researched, and the 1 that could be read contradicts itself, so the juvenile colors are left out rather than guessed.

Where to Find Them

Researched habitat and range candidates

These locations have suitable habitat within the species range. An assignment is a possible encounter, not a confirmed sighting at every beach. Season, depth, and local conditions still matter. Historical habitat without present-day evidence is excluded.