Holotype (CASIZ 182590), 33 mm long as shown here, on which Terry Gosliner based his 2010 description of this species (as Flabellina goddardi). I found it on a calm and bright overcast morning crawling in the open in a low intertidal pool at Tar Pits Reef. The 2nd image shows the egg mass, 14 mm in diameter, laid by this individual on 10 May 2008. The uncleaved zygotes averaged 65 microns in diameter, were packed one per capsule, and took 7 days at an average of 16 degrees C to develop into hatching planktotrophic veligers. The 3rd image shows, in right ventro-lateral view, one of the veligers just prior to hatching and with a shell 105 microns long.

Unlike most specimens of this species observed subtidally, individuals found intertidally vary in possession of white lines on the body and cephalic tentacles from completely absent (as in this specimen) to incomplete, to complete. With those white lines, subtidal specimens have occasionally been mistaken for Coryphella trilineata.

This observation is part of a long-term project examining plankton biodiversity in the nearshore waters around the Hakai Institute's Quadra Island ecological observatory. A COI DNA sequence from the organism has been deposited in the Barcode of Life Data System (BOLD). Photo license and credit belong to the Hakai Institute.

This observation is part of a long-term project examining plankton biodiversity in the nearshore waters around the Hakai Institute's Quadra Island ecological observatory. A COI DNA sequence from the organism has been deposited in the Barcode of Life Data System (BOLD). Photo license and credit belong to the Hakai Institute.