Dorid Nudibranch

Photo: mboh · CC BY-NC

The chocolate chip nudibranch is one of the most visually striking species in the Mediterranean, its white body patterned with large brown spots that mimic the toxic sponges it feeds on. Žanjice Bay's sponge gardens host year-round resident populations that graze slowly across the flat encrusting sponge colonies, leaving diagnostic feeding scars as they rasp through the sponge tissue. Encounters of 10 or more individuals in a single dive are not unusual during spring and autumn.