Elysia ornata is a sea slug in the Family Plakobranchidae (Order Sacoglossa). Its body is a translucent leaf-green in color with speckles of white and black. The parapodial margin is black with a yellow or orange submarginal band. The green rhinophores are usually black-tipped, but can also have orange bands (as shown).
It is also known as Ornate Leaf Slug. They feed on green algae (Bryopsis sp.), and reaches a length of 5cm.
This species is circumtropical and can be found both in the Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean.
The commonly known as Pink Bubble, Swollen Bubble, Royal paper bubble, Ship’s flag shell or Swollen bubble, is a marine snail of the species Hydatina amplustre, Syn. Aplustrum amplustre (Gastropoda - Aplustridae), widely distributed in the Indo-Pacific.
This species is easily recognized by its thin, strongly inflated shell marked with broad flesh-colored bands outlined in black. The animal is translucent cream and too large to fit in the shell [source].
Hydatina amplustre is a nocturnal species and vision is not the most important sense, so the two black spots you see in the photo are the ocelli, the visual organs that only distinguish light and dark.
Amphidromus is a genus or arboreal pulmonate land snails belonging to the sigmurethran family Camaenidae (order Stylommatophora).
The shells of Amphidromus are relatively large, from 1-3 inches high, and colorful. One interesting fact of this genus is that has mixed dextral-sinistral populations (in reference to the direction -right or left- of rotation of the shell around its axis.
Sinistral mutants of normally dextral species and dextral mutants of normally sinistral species are rare but well documented occurrences among land snail. Populations or species with normally mixed coiling are much rarer, and confined to to a few genera of arboreal tropical snails. The independent appearance of this variation in unrelated groups is probably the result of a simple mutation [1].
Distribution of the genus Amphidromus include from eastern India in south-western Asia to northern Australia [2].
Their common name the “Cuban land snail” or the “painted snail”, is a species of large, air-breathing land snail, a terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusk in the family Helminthoglyptidae.
The shell of this species is large, brightly colored, and has numerous color varieties.
This species is the type species of the genus Polymita.
I’m a really big fan of the understated coffee-and-cream coloring of the scrub euchlaena moth (Euchlaena madusaria, seen here both at night and during the day)
The larvae of the green pitcher plant moth (Exyra ridingsii) specialize on eating yellow pitcher plant (Sarracenia flava). The adults love hanging out unharmed inside pitcher plants. I coaxed this one out for a photo, and then put her back in her home.
