Description: This animal may reach 17mm in length. The body is white with characteristic yellow/orange patches. There is a curved, posteriorly-directed, orange tipped process at the base of each rhinophore and on either side of the branchial plume. The oral tentacles are long and streaked with orange pigment and there is a pair of recurved propodial tentacles that are similarly pigmented. The lamellate rhinophores are yellow/orange in colour.

Habitat: All records of this species are from shallow water. Trapania species feed on kamptozoans which are tiny animals previously classified with the bryozoans, which live attached to the surface of sponges, bryozoa and hydroids.

Distribution: This is a scarce southern species in Britain and Ireland, recorded from the Lleyn peninsula in Wales and numerous sites in SW England. Elsewhere it is known from the Brittany coast of France and the western Mediterranean with one record from Connemara in western Ireland.

Key Identification Features:

• The pattern of the yellow pigment on the body.
• Recurved yellow processes at the base of the rhinophores and alongside the gills.

Distribution Map from NBN: Trapania maculata at National Biodiversity Network mapping facility, data for UK.

iNaturalist: Trapania maculata at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.

WoRMS: Trapania maculata at World Register of Marine Species. Accepted name: Trapania maculata Haefelfinger, 1960. AphiaID: 140044.

Classification: Biota; Animalia; Mollusca; Gastropoda; Heterobranchia; Euthyneura; Ringipleura; Nudipleura; Nudibranchia; Doridina; Doridoidei; Onchidoridoidea; Goniodorididae; Anculinae; Trapania