---
title: Spotted Headshield Slug (Chelidonura punctata)
scientific_name: Chelidonura punctata
common_name: Spotted Headshield Slug
taxon: Opisthobranchia
published: 2026-08-11T13:46:59.022Z
updated: 2026-08-11T15:18:09.434Z
tags: Spotted Headshield Slug, Chelidonura punctata, Opisthobranchia, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/molluscs/opisthobranchia/spotted-headshield-slug
---

# Spotted Headshield Slug (*Chelidonura punctata*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Opisthobranchia (*Opisthobranchia*)
- **Size:** up to 4 cm
- **Depth:** 1-25 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Cathemeral
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Sand and rubble beside reef, often on algal film
- **Reproduction:** Egg layer, Simultaneous hermaphrodite

## How to recognise it

- black body covered in small round white to pale blue spots
- pale blue-white line along the edge of the head shield and lobes
- forked tail with the left lobe drawn out much longer
- length up to 4 cm

Black, scattered with small round white to pale blue spots, and outlined along the shield and lobes with a fine blue-white line. Up to 4 cm (1.6 in), and unmistakable against pale sand, which is where it spends its time.

The design is a warning rather than camouflage. Aglajids are not armored and cannot retract into anything, so they advertise instead: this family produces defensive compounds in the skin, and the black-and-white pattern shows up repeatedly across unrelated members of it, which is the signature of a shared warning signal rather than shared ancestry.

Eliot described it in 1903, in a period when British naturalists were working through Indian Ocean collections at speed and this genus in particular was accumulating names faster than anyone could sort them. Several of those names have since collapsed into each other; this one held up, and the animal is now known across the Indo-Pacific with a solid population here.

## Also known as

- **English:** Black Polka-dot Swallowtail
- **French:** Chélidonure ponctuée
- **Russian:** Хелидонура пятнистая

## Scientific synonyms

- *Chelidonura hirundinina var. punctata* Eliot, 1903

## Range

Mozambique, South Africa

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/molluscs/opisthobranchia/spotted-headshield-slug)*
*Updated: August 11, 2026*