(Della Chiaje, 1828)
Description
Adult. Body firm, with smooth skin, dorsal surface more densely and finely pigmented than ventral surface. Maximum mantle length 60 mm, comprising about one-third total length of animal. Dorsal anterior edge of mantle is not fused to head, with well-marked lip continuous with rest of mantle opening. Fins are short and rounded, rather fleshy; anterior edge of fins is not reaching anterior edge of mantle. Length of arms is about twice the length of head. Arms are more or less rounded in section; each with two rows of suckers proximally, four or more rows distally. Club suckers are small, similar, arranged in approximately ten rows.
Juvenile. Description not available. Hatchlings come out as miniature adults (see Lu et al., in Sweeney et al., 1992, p. 21.). The identification characters for juveniles are hence similar to those that are used for the identification of adults.
Size
Maximum mantle length 6 cm.
Depth range
Shallow sublittoral and offshore.
Distribution in the North Sea
Northern North Sea, Skagerrak, Kattegat; not in central and southern North Sea.
World distribution
NE Atlantic, from W Norway and the Faeroe Islands to British Isles, the Mediterranean and Adriatic Seas and NW Africa. Also recorded in the Greenland Sea off the coasts of Greenland and Iceland.