---
title: Smoky Sucking Dorid (Dendrodoris fumata)
scientific_name: Dendrodoris fumata
common_name: Smoky Sucking Dorid
taxon: Nudibranch
published: 2026-08-27T21:09:41.020Z
updated: 2026-08-27T21:59:43.500Z
tags: Smoky Sucking Dorid, Dendrodoris fumata, Nudibranch, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/molluscs/nudibranch/smoky-sucking-dorid
---

# Smoky Sucking Dorid (*Dendrodoris fumata*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Nudibranch (*Nudibranchia*)
- **Size:** up to 10 cm
- **Diet:** Spongivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Sponge-covered rock and rubble, out after dark
- **Reproduction:** Simultaneous hermaphrodite, Egg layer
- **Hazard:** Poisonous

## How to recognise it

- color unreliable: red, brown, gray or nearly black, often with dark spots
- mantle edge frequently rippled and lifted, not held flat
- soft throughout, no tubercles, no ridges
- ten centimeters, larger than the black slug it is confused with

This is the one that gets misidentified, and it is worth knowing why before you photograph it.

On this reef there is a common black Dendrodoris that everyone learns early. This species can be red, brown, gray or so dark it reads as black, and when it is dark and small it looks like that animal. The two have been confused in books, in photo databases and in dive briefings for decades, and a good share of the pictures filed under one name show the other.

What helps is size and edge. This one reaches ten centimeters (4 in) against roughly eight for the other, and it habitually lifts and ripples its mantle margin as it moves rather than keeping the skirt pressed flat. Neither is decisive on its own. Both together, on a large animal, are usually enough.

Underneath the confusion it does what the genus does, which is remarkable in its own right: it feeds with no teeth at all. The rasping belt that defines molluscan feeding is absent. The animal puts its mouth to a sponge, releases digestive fluid, and drinks the tissue back already broken down, leaving the sponge's glass skeleton standing.

Rüppell and Leuckart described it from Red Sea material in 1830, which puts it among the older names in this catalogue, and it has been getting mixed up with its neighbor ever since.

## Also known as

- **English:** Smoky Sucking Dorid
- **Spanish:** Babosa de mar ahumada, Dórido ahumado
- **Portuguese:** Nudibrânquio-maracujá
- **Japanese:** マダラウミウシ
- **Chinese:** 煙色枝鰓海蛞蝓
- **Russian:** Дендродорис дымчатый
- **KO:** 안개갯민숭달팽이

## Scientific synonyms

- *Actinodoris tilesii* J. E. Gray, 1850
- *Dendrodoris erubescens* (Bergh, 1905)
- *Dendrodoris rubra* (Kelaart, 1858)
- *Doridopsis communis* Risbec, 1928
- *Doridopsis communis var. nigra* Risbec, 1928
- *Doridopsis communis var. rosea* Risbec, 1928
- *Doridopsis rubra* (Kelaart, 1858)
- *Doriopsis erubescens* Bergh, 1905
- *Doriopsis rosea* Vayssière, 1912
- *Doris atrata* Kelaart, 1858
- *Doris fumata* Rüppell & Leuckart, 1830
- *Doris rubra* Kelaart, 1858
- *Rostanga atrata* (Kelaart, 1858)

## Range

Indonesia, Persian Gulf, South Africa

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/molluscs/nudibranch/smoky-sucking-dorid)*
*Updated: August 27, 2026*