---
title: Glorious Flatworm (Pseudoceros scintillatus)
scientific_name: Pseudoceros scintillatus
common_name: Glorious Flatworm
taxon: Flatworms
published: 2026-08-10T21:29:09.401Z
updated: 2026-08-10T22:24:43.398Z
tags: Glorious Flatworm, Pseudoceros scintillatus, Flatworms, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/worms/flatworms/glorious-flatworm
---

# Glorious Flatworm (*Pseudoceros scintillatus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Flatworms (*Pseudocerotidae*)
- **Size:** up to 2 cm
- **Depth:** 1-20 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Live coral and rubble in bright shallow water
- **Reproduction:** Egg layer, Simultaneous hermaphrodite
- **Hazard:** Poisonous

## How to recognise it

- black body covered in yellow-green spots ringed with darker haloes
- orange margin around the whole outline
- small, only about 2 cm
- moves in daylight over live coral

Small and absurdly bright: about 2 cm (0.8 in) of black body covered in yellow-green spots, each ringed by a darker halo, the whole outline finished in orange. At that size it is easy to swim past, and easy to mistake for a nudibranch at a glance, which several photographers have.

The difference is in the profile. A nudibranch stands up off the rock with gills on its back and a pair of rhinophores in front; this is a sheet, and everything it does happens at the margin. Watch the leading edge and you will see the two small folded pseudotentacles that carry its chemical senses, raised like a cat testing the air.

Color this loud on an animal this defenseless is a claim of toxicity, and in polyclads the claim is usually backed. What varies is how much: the pattern of this species is famously variable across its range, and populations that look quite different from each other still read, to a fish, as the same bad idea.

## Also known as

- **English:** Brilliant Flatworm
- **French:** Ver plat étincellant
- **Italian:** Platelminta scintillante
- **Chinese:** 彩艷偽角扁蟲
- **Russian:** Плоский червь искрящийся

## Range

Maldives, Queensland

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/worms/flatworms/glorious-flatworm)*
*Updated: August 10, 2026*