Category: Defences, Warnings, Camouflage & Mimicry

Sea Slugs – Taking Care of Business Slugs? . Yes, lowly slugs, specifically sea slugs. Those small biological blobs that seemingly just lie inanimate upon the substrate, doing nothing, sometimes seen sliding along to who knows where or indeed, to what purpose. Most divers are content to record their colourful presence because they are attractive

Illusory – Delusory – Elusory – The Art Of Blending In – Sea Slugs that mimic their food or other invertebrates in the habitat. In other NudiNotes we have looked at the many ways that sea slugs mimic other sea slugs, sea slugs that advertise their colourful presence as a toxic warning and other sea

FAKE – FRAUDULENT – FALLACIOUS Mimics of Sea Slugs Other NudiNotes have discussed sea slugs that look like other sea slugs (see Specious Sea Slugs NudiNote), for a number of complex reasons, and all the confusion that it causes taxonomists, the publishers of identification guides and us lowly sea slug aficionados. Sneaky, sly sea slugs

SPECIOUS SEA SLUGS Specious: misleading in appearance, superficially plausible but actually incorrect. Cryptics Mimics Variations & Morphs Most divers just enjoy their recreation with little exposure to, or even interest in, the scientific process. They take pleasure in what they see and find, often recording those finds on a camera. There comes a time though

NUDIBRANCH GILL GUARDING Shell-less but not defenceless The sea is full of hungry mouths, many many hungry mouths either lying patiently in ambush or constantly on the move, in all directions, hunting for any opportunity to take a bite and feed. The last thing any animal needs is to have some attractive piece of their

Plocamopherus ceylonicus displaying the four papilla-mounted bioluminescent globes arranged around the vulnerable gill. ILLUMINATION ENLIGHTENMENT Bioluminescence in Nudibranchs Species of the humble sea slug can possess unusual and extraordinary capabilities such as autotomy, zooxanthellae hosting, kleptoplasty, exploitation of their prey’s defences through nematocyst sequestration and toxin accumulation, not to mention some incredible host mimicking. Another,

Autotomy – the Self Sacrifice Defence   The ability to cast off a particular section of their anatomy, in order to facilitate escape from a predator, is possessed by a wide range of animals. Although the phenomenon, even in the Mollusca, had been recognized previously the term wasn’t coined until 1883 by Leon Fredericq as