Orange-peel Doris - Life Habits

Life Habits

Acanthodoris lutea feeds on encrusting bryozoans. It turns the chemicals received from the bryozoan food into a noxious metabolite which is toxic to possible predators (Morris et al. 1980).

This species is aposomatically colored, warning predators of this toxic deterrent. If you handle this dorid you will smell the deterrent chemical on your fingers: it has the pungent aroma of sandalwood.

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