Glossary
- anterior - towards the front of the body.
- arborescent - tree-like.
- athecate - gymnoblastic hydroids.
- calyptoblastic - hydroids with complete thecal cups around the polyps.
- carnivorous - feeds on other animals.
- chitin - a tough membranous protein material.
- circalittoral - the region dominated by sessile animals, found below the algal zone.
- colonial - usually applied to animals in which identical individuals are united together, forming a colony.
- conulose - conical in shape.
- dorsum - the back of the animal.
- ephemeral - seasonal organisms that usually die back in winter.
- epidermis - skin.
- fucoids - brown algae of the family Fucaceae, eg. bladder wrack.
- gill - respiratory organ.
- gymnoblastic - hydroids in which the polyps are not surrounded by thecal cups.
- infralittoral - the algal dominated zone below low water mark.
- interstitially - living between sand grains.
- intertidal - the region of the shore between high and low tide.
- mantle rim - the edge of the mantle; in many nudibranchs this is reduced to a ridge along the sides of the body, from which processes or cerata arise.
- mucronate - a rounded shape, drawn out into a point at the tip.
- nematocyst - stinging cells found in cnidarians.
- operculum - a horny plate that seals the opening of the shell, this is absent in adult nudibranchs, but present in the larval stage.
- ovotestis - male and female gonads.
- pallial rim - mantle rim.
- pedunculate - stalked.
- phanerobranch - gills that cannot be retracted into a gill-pocket.
- posterior - the tail end of the animal.
- prey - an animal on which another animal feeds.
- reticulate - a pattern of straight lines or ridges joining at angles.
- sessile - living attached to the substratum.
- spawn - mass of eggs embedded in transparent jelly.
- spicules - calcareous spines incorporated in the mantle tissue.
- stellate - star shaped.
- sublittoral - below the low tide level.
- subterminal - just below the end or tip of a process.
- synonym - a newer name given inadvertently to a species already described.
- taxonomy - the classification of organisms into related groups in a hierarchical manner.
- tentacle - a long sensory process.
- tubercle - a rounded swelling, found on the dorsal surface of many dorid nudibranchs.
- velum - a ciliated pair of lobes, used for swimming and feeding by larval molluscs.
- ventral - the oral surface on the underside of the animal.