World's most beautiful.....

[Hallyx]

....slug.

Actually there are a number of lovely sea-slugs, but Glaucus Atlanticus has special appeal. They are pelagic (they really travel) roaming the world's temperate and tropical oceans feeding on Men-O-War and other floaters, even though they're barely more than an inch long. An air sac in their stomachs keeps them afloat. They have a fascinating life history which you can easily look up.

Unfortunately, they do poorly in captivity.

In the pictures, you're looking at their ventral surface---their bottom---which faces up in life. The dorsal is a uniform silver-blue---and faces down.

[SpookyTooth]

It's almost unreal. I've seen cartoons of these but never an actual photograph, I never knew that the cartoony pictures were of something real.

Utterly remarkable... thank you for posting these.

[bettasusa]

have never seen anything like this, amazing! awesome share!

[Olympia]

I looooove nudibranch!




Looks so much smaller in this photo, doesn't it? xD

And nope, not in captivity, sadly. Too difficult to feed.

[RandyTheBettaFish]

wow those are pretty. too bad they dont do good in captivity...

[Olympia]

If you could supply a steady flow of fresh jellyfish and such, I'm sure it'd be doable. xD

[Aus]

... nature never ceases to amaze me. I have never actually seen any pictures of these, so thank you Hallyx & Olympia for those, what a treat.

[Olympia]

Aus, if you just search "nudibranch" on google you will be amazed. Hundreds, thousands, of these little guys and they are all works of art.

[Aus]

Oh, I've seen sea slugs before (our Barrier Reef here has a lot of really pretty ones!) - just not that particular kind. Hard to imagine them being predators to something as scary as a Man'O'War jellyfish..

Here's my favourite nudibranch pic, looks like something that might hang around with The Wiggles:

[AngesRadieux]

That's absolutely gorgeous. It's a good thing that they don't do too well in captivity, because if I saw those in a fish store I don't think I'd be able to resist them. Those colors are just stunning. *stares*