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- ›Aplysioidea

Seahares
Aplysiidae
Aplysiidae is the only family in the superfamily Aplysioidea, within the clade Anaspidea. These animals are commonly called sea hares because, unlike most sea slugs, they are often quite large, and when they are underwater, their rounded body shape and the long rhinophores on their heads mean that their overall shape resembles that of a sitting rabbit or hare. Sea hares are however sea snails with shells reduced to a small plate hidden between the parapodia, and some species are extremely large. The Californian black sea hare, Aplysia vaccaria is arguably the largest living gastropod species, and is certainly the largest living heterobranch gastropod.
10 branches of this family, most-observed first

Aplysia
genusAplysia
Dolabriferinae
subfamilyDolabriferinae

Stylocheilus
genusStylocheilus
Bursatella
genusBursatella

Dolabella
genusDolabella

Phyllaplysia
genusPhyllaplysia

Petalifera
genusPetalifera

Syphonota
genusSyphonota

Notarchus
genusNotarchus

Phycophila
genusPhycophila
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
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geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
Drag the globe to turn it. Dots are where records exist, not a range map; darker means more records.
In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Aplysiidae in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 48656.