Description
Adult Elysia chlorotica are usually bright green in colour, due to the presence of Vaucheria litorea chloroplasts in the cells of the slugs digestive diverticula. However, they can occasionally appear reddish or greyish in colour, thought to depend on the amount of chlorophyll in the branches of the digestive gland which ramify throughout the body. This species can also have very small red or white spots scattered over the body. A juvenile, prior to feeding, is brown with red pigment spots due to the absence of chloroplasts. Elysia chlorotica have a typical elysiid shape with large lateral parapodia which can fold over to enclose the body. Elysia chlorotica can grow up to 60mm in length but are more commonly found between 20mm to 30mm in length.
Read more about this topic: Elysia Chlorotica
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“The great object in life is Sensation—to feel that we exist, even though in pain; it is this “craving void” which drives us to gaming, to battle, to travel, to intemperate but keenly felt pursuits of every description whose principal attraction is the agitation inseparable from their accomplishment.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St. Paul’s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“He hath achieved a maid
That paragons description and wild fame;
One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)