the spectacular world of nudibranchs

a fascinating, beautiful, little animal is the subject of a really cool article by jennifer holland over at national geographic. the animal is called a nudibranch - honest! nudibranchs (pronounced noodibranks) are basically a relative of the snail that decided to go without the shell. the resultant soft, squishy creature has very wisely developed some pretty nasty defenses ranging from the very basic - a tough bumpy abrasive skin, to toxic secretions and stinging cells!

nudibranchs live pretty much anywhere from sandy shallows to the mud you’d find a mile down. but let’s get back to the nasty stuff about them. the stinging cells i mentioned earlier are actually harvested by them! that’s right, they’ll eat up a sponge and in the process they’ll alter and store the sponge’s nasty stuff in their bodies and secrete it from their skin cells or glands when they’re bugged!

the real story with nudibranchs for me though is the stunning variety of beautiful colours and shapes they come in.

if you visit national geographic you’ll find a gorgeous gallery of nudibranch photographs taken by david doubilet all of which are available for purchase for twenty dollars each unframed!

greenpeace has a nice little article on nudibranchs with a couple of lovely pictures.

a brief national geographic video tells more and shows more . . .

here’s another lovely video that shows a wide variety of truly exquisite and lovely nudibranchs

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