The Strange Protuberances of the Floral Streetcar Sea Slug

Noting the red spots and strange protuberances, my first thought was that this sea slug creature could use some penicillin. Named “Floral streetcar,” apparently the owner thought so as well and I won’t go further there. Then to my horror, I scrolled down to see these pictures of this sea slug being fed brittle stars. So much for sleep tonight. Hopefully you won’t see this until daylight and can get it out of your head by nightfall. Read the amusing Google Translate below.



“Whole body is covered in projections of white and red, it is in a beautiful sea slug body and projections shiny shiny pale If you give a stimulus to the bonus.”



“Favorite food of floral streetcar is brittle stars.
So voracious, I eat even from fingertip approximating the brittle stars in mouth of floral streetcar that crawl the glass surface.”



“Spot! I inhale in one breath. Mr. feast!”


Another entry in this wonderful blog is an imaginary conversation between walruses speaking about male estrus odor. I think it’s time we all follow the Toba Aquarium.

matt



(Please accept the link above in lieu of permission for these fantastic photos. Email sent all the same.)

 

What a bizarre animal. :

Looks like you better have a lot of mini brittles on hand to feed it.

The coloration must be related to the sea slugs natural habitat. I would love to know what that is. If I had to guess I would say it looks like types of NPS and sponges. Something like this:

google images.

Too many cool creatures, so little time.

 

I like your train of thought there Cheryl. I'd love to know.

Who is our resident Sea Slug fan?

 

Is that Korean? Doesn't look like Mandarin, if it is though, and you need a translation, let me know, my wife will be home soon.

 

so cool

 

Japanese Todd. THanks though

 

I'm a seaslug fan, but that's got to be the wildest nudi post I've seen this year....maybe ever!


Don

 

I went here

Japanese sea slugs species list

536 species later and I am more confused than when I started. There is no rhyme or reason as to how the classify or name them......

 

OK....so I guess this is Kalinga ornata. It's apparently a polycerid, but pretty amazing behavior to look so closely related to the sponge eaters:

Kalinga Ornata Nudibranch - YouTube

Thanks again Matt.




Don

 

By the way, Cheryl...you may already know this, but, every animal in Japan has an official Japanese common name...so, you get official common names that translate to something like "Floral Streetcar Sea Slug" !!!