The original description: "Color whitish, but appearing deep green, due to dense chloroplasts in disgestive diverticua; cerata and body covered with scatterend large black round chromatophores; faint orange rings surround cerata near distal tip; bluish-green iridescent spots and small whitish glands scattered on cerata; a green iridescent spot, surrounded by a yellow ring, is located between the large eyes and the paricardium. Rhinophores long, cylindrical, tapering, with auriculate base; cerata pyriform (fusiform in relaxed animals), arranged in five to six diagonal rows on each side, four cerata per row; cerata separated from the foot by a shallow furrow. Posterior foot divided by transverse groove and containing digestive diverticula, appearing much like a ceras. Radular teeth uniform in size, about nine teeth in the ascending arc and 10-12 in the descending; ascus absent." (Clark, 1984, The Nautilus, 98(2), p. 92).
Identification: The body is translucent to clear and covered with black spots. The head can have orange yellow patches and the large black eyes are prominent and close together between the rhinophores. Behind the rhinophores in the midline is a characteristic blue spot. The inflated cerata narrow to a long thin tapering tip. The ceratal wall is transparent with black spots, and the ceratal digestive gland ducts are green from being filled with green chloroplasts. There is an orange yellow band around the cerata, just down from the tip. The name ‘ocellifera’ refers to the ringed blue spot. (Valdés et al., Caribbean Sea Slugs, 2006)
It reaches 13 mm in length.
Found on and eating Avrainvillea (e.g. Avrainvillea nigricans) in the field and Caulerpa fastigiata only when starved under laboratory conditions (Jensen, 1981; Marcus, 1984).
It is commonly found with Costasiella nonatoi (Marcus, 1984).
The type locality of this species is Bermuda. Its range includes the Bahamas, Jamaica, Belize, Dominican Republic, and Florida.
This sea slug retains photosynthetically active chloroplasts within its digestive tract (digestive diverticula) from, Avrainvillea nigricans, the alga on which it feeds. In one study (Clark et al., 1981) chloroplasts remained active for approximately 65 days while C. ocellifera (= C. lilianae as presented in the paper) was starved of other nourishment.
AlgaeBase as: Guiry, M.D. & Guiry, G.M. 2010. AlgaeBase. World-wide electronic publication, National University of Ireland, Galway. http://www.algaebase.org
Valdés, Angel, Jeff Hammon, David Behrens, and Anne Dupont. 2006. Caribbean Sea Slugs. Sea Challengers Natural History Books. 289 pp.