Doto amyra, or the hammerhead doto, is a species of very small or minute sea slug, a nudibranch, a shell-less marine gastropod mollusk in the family Dotidae.Rosenberg, G. (2015). Doto amyra Er. Marcus, 1961. In: MolluscaBase (2015). Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species on 2015-12-28
Distribution This species occurs from Alaska to Baja California, Mexico.
Description This nudibranch reaches a maximum size of 14 mm, but commonly it is under 10 mm in adult size.Behrens, David W., 1980, Pacific Coast Nudibranchs: a guide to the opisthobranchs of the northeastern Pacific, Sea Challenger Books, Washington.
The body is colourless, but the cerata are coloured due to the digestive glands inside them. The colour of the digestive gland can be creamy yellow to orange-red to brown, depending on the colour of the hydroids that an individual specimen has been eating.Rudman, W.B., 2002 (April 17) Doto amyra Marcus, 1961. Factsheet. [In] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Compared with Doto kya and Doto columbiana this species lacks any dark pigment on the body.Ken-ichi Ueda, 2015. Photo and discussion on FlickrMcDonald, G., 2015. Intertidal Invertebrates of the Monterey Bay Area, California.
Ecology
This nudibranch feeds on hydroids. It has been reported apparently feeding on a variety of species including Garveia sp., Bougainvilliidae, Abietinaria spp., Sertulariidae as well as a plumulariid hydroid.Rudman, W.B., 2002 (April 17) Doto amyra Marcus, 1961. Discussion. [In] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. This may be evidence of a species complex rather than a single species.Behrens, D. (2002) Doto amyra In: Miller M. The Slug Site, accessed 28-12-2015. It in unusual in having a form of development where the eggs are large compared with most Doto species and therefore larvae which settle after only a few days in the plankton.Goddard, J.H.R. 1996. Lecithotrophic development in Doto amyra (Nudibranchia: Dendronotacea), with a review of developmental mode in the genus. The Veliger 39(1):43-54.
References