---
title: Branched Kaloplocamus (Kaloplocamus ramosus)
scientific_name: Kaloplocamus ramosus
common_name: Branched Kaloplocamus
taxon: Nudibranch
published: 2026-08-25T21:57:47.761Z
updated: 2026-08-25T23:50:45.829Z
tags: Branched Kaloplocamus, Kaloplocamus ramosus, Nudibranch, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/molluscs/nudibranch/branched-kaloplocamus
---

# Branched Kaloplocamus (*Kaloplocamus ramosus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Nudibranch (*Nudibranchia*)
- **Size:** up to 2.5 cm
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Rare
- **Habitat:** Rubble, sand and algae-covered rock, out after dark
- **Reproduction:** Simultaneous hermaphrodite, Egg layer

## How to recognise it

- translucent white body with scattered orange spots
- short branched appendages standing along each side of the body
- the branching is the identification: nothing else small and white here is shaggy
- gills exposed at the back, unable to retract

This slug was named in 1835 from the Mediterranean, and it also lives here, and off the Azores, and off South Africa, and around New Zealand and Tasmania. That is an enormous range for an animal two and a half centimeters (1 in) long that crawls, and it means one of two things: either its larvae stay in the plankton long enough to cross oceans, or what we currently call one species is going to turn out to be several. Both answers are common in sea slugs, and this one is not yet settled.

What you see at night is a translucent white animal flecked with orange, carrying a row of short, branched appendages down each side. Ramosus means branched, and the shagginess is the fastest way to name it.

Those appendages do something. In this family they contain light-producing tissue, and a disturbed animal can flash from the tips of them, one of a very small number of sea slugs anywhere known to make their own light. For an animal that would otherwise be a silent white smear on the rubble, a sudden glow in a predator's face is a real defense, and a startling thing to trigger accidentally with a dive light.

Its food is bryozoans, the encrusting lace on dead coral and rock. It grazes them after dark and spends the day out of sight, which together with its size is why a slug found on four continents is still one most divers here have never seen.

## Also known as

- **Japanese:** エダウミウシ
- **Russian:** Калоплокамус ветвистый

## Scientific synonyms

- *Doris fimbriata* Delle Chiaje, 1841
- *Doris ramosa* Cantraine, 1835
- *Euplocamus atlanticus* Bergh, 1892
- *Euplocamus croceus* R. A. Philippi, 1836
- *Euplocamus frondosus* R. A. Philippi, 1839
- *Kaloplocamus atlanticus* (Bergh, 1892)
- *Kaloplocamus aureus* Odhner, 1932
- *Kaloplocamus filosus* Cattaneo-Vietti & Sordi, 1988

## Range

Adriatic Sea, North Atlantic Ocean, South Africa

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/molluscs/nudibranch/branched-kaloplocamus)*
*Updated: August 25, 2026*