Diverticulum (mollusc anatomy)

This article is about structures in seaslugs. For the medical term, see Diverticulum.
The aeolid nudibranch Flabellina lineata with enlargement of the cerata to show the coloured hepatic diverticula.

As applied to mollusks, the Neo-Latin term diverticulum is an anatomical feature. The term is most often encountered in the plural form as "diverticula", "hepatic diverticula", or "digestive diverticula", which are anatomical terms for organs which are visible from the outside of the body in a clade of sea slugs known as aeolid nudibranchs, marine opisthobranch gastropod molluscs.[1]

The term is also applied to mollusk anatomy in other contexts: land slugs such as Lehmannia marginata have a caecal diverticulum [1] and there is also a diverticulum in the stomach of certain Bivalvia.[2]

  1. ^ Nudibranch.com.au website, Nudibranch Glossary, Definitions of terms relating to Opisthobranchs, [3] Accessed 2014-9-6