Needle Sea Butterfly

About this species

Creseis acicula is a species of pteropod, a distant type of sea-slug. It is in the family Creseidae.

Text from the Wikipedia article “Creseis acicula”, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Read the article

Where and when

Where it has been recorded

Worldwide

Loading the map

Best months

Worldwide (open data)

January: 157 records
February: 198 records
March: 133 records
April: 143 records
May: 133 records
June: 243 records
July: 260 records
August: 232 records
September: 263 records
October: 338 records
November: 261 records
December: 157 records

Depth and water temperature

Depth

Mostly recorded at 0–100 m · Deepest record: 4,766 m

0–10 m: 231 records
10–20 m: 74 records
20–30 m: 119 records
30–40 m: 816 records
40–50 m: 36 records
50–60 m: 118 records
60–70 m: 8 records
70–80 m: 26 records
80–90 m: 19 records
90–100 m: 5 records
100–110 m: 60 records
110+ m: 112 records

Water temperature

Recorded in surface water of 2–30 °C

0–2 °C: 1 records
2–4 °C: 0 records
4–6 °C: 0 records
6–8 °C: 0 records
8–10 °C: 0 records
10–12 °C: 1 records
12–14 °C: 1 records
14–16 °C: 5 records
16–18 °C: 24 records
18–20 °C: 301 records
20–22 °C: 77 records
22–24 °C: 91 records
24–26 °C: 124 records
26–28 °C: 183 records
28–30 °C: 83 records

Photos

(c) Lasse R, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) · CC BY-SA · iNaturalist
(c) Luke Padon, some rights reserved (CC BY) · CC BY · iNaturalist
(c) Georgina Jones, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) · CC BY-SA · iNaturalist
(c) Pam Kleinsasser, some rights reserved (CC BY) · CC BY · iNaturalist
(c) Georgina Jones, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) · CC BY-SA · iNaturalist
(c) Rafael Rosa, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) · CC BY-SA · iNaturalist

Names and classification

English: Needle Sea Butterfly, Straight Needle-Pteropod

Names in 4 more languages

German: Seeschmetterling
French: Ptéropode aiguille droite
Japanese: ウキヅノガイ
Simplified Chinese: 棒筆帽螺

Other scientific names: Cleodora (Creseis) acicula, Cleodora (Creseis) clava, Cleodora acicula, Cleodora clava, Creseis acus, Creseis clava, Creseis recta, Creseis spiniformis, Dentalium ecostatum, Hyalaea aciculata

Sources and credits

Names and taxonomy: WoRMS (CC BY 4.0) and the GBIF Backbone (CC BY 4.0). Photos: iNaturalist observers, each under the licence shown (CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA).

Depth, temperature, months and maps: records from OBIS and GBIF under CC0 or CC BY.
Descriptions: Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA, each linked to its article.
Conservation status as published by GBIF (IUCN Red List).
2,774 open-data records from 1828 to 2025.
Species data updated October 26, 2026.