One of the most common nudibranchs in the Marshalls cannot easily be put into any of the known species. Like P. tula, P. varicosa, P. carlsonhoffi, and P. elegans, this species bears a black line running from front to back on the bottom of its foot, but it really doesn't fit into any of those species. Although in some references and websites it is called P. carlsonhoffi, it differs from that species and from P. elegans in that the tubercle bases are very light to darker blue, not white or pink; from P. varicosa in that the tubercles are not in blue longitudinal ridges; and from P. tula in that the tubercles are simple rather than compound. However, sometimes individual specimens do seem to blend together, and of them all, ours seem closest to and may turn out to be a variant of P. varicosa. This is a large phyllidiid, much like P. tula and P. varicosa. Phyllidia sp. e359 looks the same over in Pohnpei as it does at Kwajalein. We have seen these commonly at Enewetak and Kwajalein Atolls. John and Lynette Flynn have it recorded from Rongelap and it was found by Stan Jazwinski at Ailinglaplap.
This species is one of the Mullerian mimics of P. varicosa.
This ones has more black than usual, but it shows well the arrangement of warts and color along the margin, which is quite different from Phyllidia tula.
This pair ties a couple of the different color forms together.
The color on the margin of the specimen below starts to look a little like that of Phyllidia varicosa.
The photo below is a young specimen, more the length of a typical Phyllidia carlsonhoffi, but the bumps don't look anything like that species, and this animal is a lot more oval rather than elongate.
Not too sure where the next one fits. It almost has some ridging developing, a bit like P. varicosa
Looks like the dorsal bumps on the next one are kind of trying to form ridges.
The Ailinglaplap specimen is immediately below.
The next two show top and bottom of a specimen observed on Kwajalein Atoll's seaward reef at a depth of 8m on 31 May 2009.
The foot bottom on this species is mostly somewhat light blue-gray with an irregular longitudinal black line.
Brunckhorst's (1993) figure of Phyllidia carlsonhoffi below shows the white bases to the tubercles.
Created 25 December 2006
Updated 14 August 2021