Alrighty. Time to talk about my passion: sea slugs.
FIRST OFF: What the fuck is a sea slug? Well, according to Wikipedia, the sea slug label applies to “some marine invertebrates with varying levels of resemblance to terrestrial slugs”. That’s a fancy way of saying it’s a slug that lives in the sea. For the sake of this, you just need to know that sea slugs are gastropods in the mollusk phylum (taxonomical term for a group smaller than a kingdom and larger than a class).
These lovely creatures can be divided into three groups, also known as clades/orders:
- Nudibranchs: the vibrant and poisonous ones (an example being the internet-famous sea bunny)
- Sacoglossans: the ones that look like plants and behave like plants (most of the time)
- Sea hares: the dull (boring) ones that sometimes look like a taco
Now, because I adore sea slugs (some more than others), I’m going to make this a series! I’m definitely going to cover the different clades of sea slugs as well as their anatomy, and I might dedicate a few posts to specific species of sea slugs. Also, if this interests you, I’d suggest looking through the Sea Slug Forum; it’s a website with a bunch of posts about sea slugs, and it was made by a malacologist (someone who studies mollusks)!
HAPPY PRIDE MONTH