About Doto amyra Er.Marcus, 1961
Doto amyra, a species of nudibranch, reaches a maximum adult size of 14 mm, and most fully grown adults are smaller than 10 mm. Its body is naturally colourless, but its cerata gain colour from the digestive glands located inside them. The digestive gland ranges in colour from creamy yellow to orange-red to brown; this variation matches the colour of the hydroids that the individual nudibranch has been eating. Unlike the related species Doto kya and Doto columbiana, Doto amyra has no dark pigment on its body. This species is distributed along the Pacific coast of North America, from Alaska down to Baja California, Mexico. Doto amyra feeds exclusively on hydroids. It has been recorded feeding on a diverse set of hydroid species, including Garveia sp. (family Bougainvilliidae), Abietinaria spp. (family Sertulariidae), and an unidentified plumulariid hydroid. This broad range of recorded feeding hosts suggests that Doto amyra as currently classified may actually be a species complex rather than a single biological species. Doto amyra has an unusual developmental pattern for a Doto species: it produces relatively large eggs, and its larvae only spend a few days in the plankton before settling.
