Should I even show this yet? Got a new tattoo yesterday. I didn't finish it because this hurt a lot, especially when it got into the armpit.
But finally finishing my sleeve, I'm adding some plants. I've got bird of paradise going on and a palm leaf. I don't know when I'm gonna finish it now because now I know what the armpit feels like and it sucks.
Anyway, today I'm introducing you to one of my favorite animals. Cheetahs will always be number one because of the lore. But there's one group that, when I first learned about in college, shocked me by how badass they are. The Sea Slugs. When you first hear sea slug, your brain probably goes to something like this.
A generic slug in the ocean. Objectively gross. But that is absolutely not the case. Sea slugs are vibrant, colorful, some are objectively cute, and many have abilities that I still can't wrap my head around to this day. A very big part of me feels like they can't possibly exist.
They're too good to be true. And soon, you'll see why. So buckle up, and allow me to introduce you to your new favorite group of animals. And if you say they're not, you're a goddamn liar. As always, let's get the general information.
out of the way by starting off with a technicality. Technically, the animals that I'm introducing you to are called nudibranchs, a specific group of sea slugs. The name nudibranch translates to naked gills, which is just what the fuck these sea slugs got going on. Generally, exposed gills on the outsides of their bodies on their backs.
For the sake of this video, when I say sea slugs, I mean nudibranchs, unless I say so, because nudibranchs are sea slugs. But just keep in mind that not all sea slugs are nudibranchs. So, sea slugs are found in oceans all around the world, mostly in shallow tropical waters. and they are also very small.
About two inches long in general. Some get to like two feet long, but they are exceptions. Big exceptions.
Mostly they are extremely little guys. And like I said, they are vibrant, colorful, absolutely dazzling. In some cases this serves as camouflage, in others it serves as something called aposematism.
Aposematism. How did I say it was pronounced last time? I feel like I went back and forth.
Aposematism. Aposematism. Shit.
You say aposematic, so then it must be aposematism. Aposematic. Yeah. Which you might remember from the episode of What the Fuck is This that was just a series of people touching things they shouldn't touch.
They're chill. It was in fact not chill. When it comes to the animal kingdom, a good rule to live by is, if it looks like an acid trip, it could send you on an acid trip.
And a bad one at that. Bright colors usually indicate something is toxic, disgusting, or otherwise foul if you choose to indulge. And this rule exists on a spectrum for sea slugs. Some are pretty harmless, while others have the power to make you see the light.
as I will show you in a bit. Also worth mentioning that their fossil record is garbage. Matter of fact, it's non-existent. As you can see, they are soft-bodied to shit.
And small and soft-bodied to shit are the two worst qualities to have checked off if you want to be dug out of the ground millions of years from now. But honestly, I think that's pretty cool and kind of crazy to think about. If they didn't exist today, we would just have no idea they ever existed.
So what else do we not know about, you know? That's just crazy to think about. So just keep that in mind because as I show you some sea slugs, you'll probably remember that.
and be like holy shit times two because this is cool and also what else existed like this that we'll never know about also last thing before showing you the nudibranchs they're all hermaphroditic they have both male and female parts so they can conveniently bang anyone and objectively that's probably the best situation to be in in the animal kingdom so Round of applause for them. We're gonna start off with the one you are most likely to like. Objectively, the cutest one on the list. About a year and a half ago, I had you guys vote on what traits make an animal objectively cute.
You came up with small, fluffy, and round. And this sea slug is the trifecta. The sea bunny, as you can see. Small, fluffy, and round.
That's the cutest fucking thing I've ever seen in my entire life. At first glance, there's a chance you're thinking, this cannot possibly exist. It is too perfect to be real.
But yet, it is. The sea bunny is an inch-long nudibranth, first discovered in 1938 off the coast of Japan. which honestly is very on brand.
It's like the Hello Kitty of nudibranchs. But as you would expect from a small marine invertebrate, the sea bunny is not covered in true fur or fluff, but instead something arguably even cooler, carophyllidia, tiny sensory structures that just so happen to get arranged in a way that is absolutely darling. And their bunny ears are not actual ears, but rhinophores, which are similar to ears in the sense that they sense something, but instead of sound, they sense chemicals. Chemical ears, if you will, to locate friends, food, and foe. And the bunny tail is the naked lung situation that's usually the most common.
I told you about earlier. It's how they breed. So, they got a lot of cool shit going on that just so happens to be arranged in a way that's objectively cute. But unlike other bunnies, sea bunnies do not eat plants.
Their food situation is a bit unusual. They eat toxic sponges. A bit disgusting, if you ask me. But, in doing so, they become toxic themselves. So, what the fuck does that mean?
This is the whole thing about nudibranchs that seems too cool to be true. You know how people say, you are what you eat. Well, many nudibranchs take that seriously.
I wanted to show you the sea bunny first to kind of get your guard down. appeal to your ethos. And now I want to explain what the fuck I meant by that with a different kind of sea slug, the Aeolid nudibranchs. As you can see they're sick-looking. Rather than the tiny fluffy Carophyllidia all over the sea bunny, the Aeolid nudibranchs have serrata covering their bodies.
Much more prominent, much more metal, just totally and completely badass. Aeolid nudibranchs like to eat mydarians, a massive group called a phylum that includes an- animals like jellyfish, sea anemones, coral, etc. One thing about this group is they are notorious for their defense mechanism, stinging cells called nematocysts. Probably familiar with them if you ever got stung by a jellyfish at the beach.
They're very small, but they have this little coiled, thread-like structure that acts like a tripwire. And when it's triggered, this little harpoon called a nematocyst tubule gets shot at, penetrates the prey or predator's skin, and injects different types of toxins into the target. But, Aeola nudibranchs are not phased by this defense at all. Nope. They seek it out.
They yearn for it. They eat it. Unharmed. But then absorb it into their bodies. Store it at the very tips of their serrata.
To use as their own defense later on. Dude. They take the prey's defense mechanism. Say, fuck you and your entire family.
Eat it. And save it to use for later. What the fuck? I think that's the coolest thing ever.
Imagine if we could do that. That would be so sick. Eat a puffer fish and then poke someone and send them to the ER. Actually, that would not be sick.
That would be devastating. There was probably a better example to use for that. Uh...
Imagine if you could eat a fish and then suddenly have gills and swim underwater. That would be sick. But anyway, that is all to say that the sea bunnies have a similar situation with the toxic sponge. They eat the toxic sponge and suddenly they become toxic in the way the toxic sponge is toxic. So another point for sea bunnies being the coolest.
Now back to the aeolids. I want to show you some specific species that I think that you will like. Like the chocolate aeolid. They don't eat chocolate that we know of.
but they definitely look like they do. And their scientific name is Cucinella coca-chroma, which I just love. Coca-chroma sounds like a vacation drink, like a pina colada with chocolate in it.
This one doesn't have a common name, but it's called Philodesmium iriomotense. I think it needs a name. It is so cool.
I'm personally leaning towards Sea Snowflake because their serrata kind of look like snowflake designs. They look like a winter wonderland in the form of a sea slug. Let me know if you agree or if you have any other suggestions. Next, the Undertaker Nudibranch.
which was discovered pretty recently in 2018 in the deep sea. The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute announced the discovery, said the slug was found under some whale bones. So, it must have been hanging out in a whale fall, which are little temporary oases in the deep sea created by the death of a whale. Sinks to the bottom, becomes a big feast for all the deep sea misfits.
One of them, in this case, being the undertaker nudibranch. Whale falls are one of the many examples of nature being metal as fuck, and also they are on my list to cover in a long-form format, just so you know. Alright, the next slug on the list is not an aeolid, but kind of has the same shit going on as an aeolid. times 10. Or possibly times 100. The Blue Dragon.
One from that What the Fuck is This episode that I mentioned earlier. I couldn't not highlight them in this video. They are obviously stunning. And as long as you stay the fuck away from them, they serve as another great candidate for your favorite C-slot. So, let me break it down.
The Blue Dragon, or Glaucus Atlanticus, very pointy name, I like it a lot, is a petite, inch-long nudibranch that is obviously stunning. They look like something out of Spine World, the greatest online game to ever exist. Period.
Or they look like something out of perhaps An acid trip, i.e. something you should avoid, if you remember what I said, because they will fuck your shit up if need be. Like the Aeolian nudibranchs, the blue dragon has an appetite for the wicked, but this time much more heinous, because they like to eat the Portuguese man-of-war, which you might be familiar with from a variety of viral videos of people touching them, licking them, caressing them, and other profane acts that should put them on a list. I don't know what kind of list. but a list. Because a man o' war will rock your shit like nobody's business.
Their tentacles can get to over a hundred feet long, and deliver excruciatingly painful stings that, on rare occasion, can be deadly. They are Cnidarians, in the same phylum as jellyfish and anemones, and so they have those stinging nematocysts as well, but much more potent, able to send a full-sized human to the ER, and on rare occasion, to their death. But somehow this has not stopped the inch-long blue dragon. No, this.
is their bread and butter. Just like the aeolids, they are not only immune to the stingers, but recycle them for their own use, sorting them through the digestive gland and storing them at the tips of their serrata for defense later on. After just a quick bite to eat, this tiny, beautiful specimen becomes one of the deadliest creatures in the ocean, and I find that inspiring. I think that's very cool.
I wish we could do something like that. But in a way that's productive to society, you know? Like, imagine if we could do that with celery. Or just plants in general. Like, eat a plant, then suddenly we can go outside and photosynthesize.
Make food from the sun. Solar-powered people. How cool would that be?
I AREN'T! Which brings me to my next example of a slug that can do just that. The Leaf Sheep Sea Slug. Has the same kind of shit going on as the Aeolids and the Blue Dragon, but this time, with PLANTS. They eat algae, then recycle the chloroplasts, store them in their serrata, and suddenly, become kind of half plant half animal, able to photosynthesize and make energy for themselves for up to about 10 days.
This is called kleptoplasty, which essentially means the ability to steal chloroplasts and use them for yourself. Kleptoplasty. I didn't realize until I started researching for this video that the leaf sheep is not technically a nudibranch.
They belong to a different group of sea slugs that have similar shit going on as nudibranchs. Caught. Sacoglossans.
Lots of sacoglossans have this photosynthetic ability, and many species blur the line between plant and animal even more. I mean, not actually, because they are definitely animals. Like this one, Alesia chlorotica. There's no denying they look like a leaf. And they can photosynthesize for a very long time, like up to a year, after taking chloroplasts from algae only a couple times.
So, honestly, just another example of nature never giving shit to you straight. Another cool relative with the same shit going on is Alesia crispata. Alesia crispata. Also known as a lettuce slug.
And another one, Alesia ornata. And another one, Alesia timida. I like what this group brings to the table. They're very dazzling. And as you would expect from such a cool animal with a cool ability, scientists are researching the fuck out of them, trying to figure out how they do the things they do so that maybe we could do something similar in some sort of fashion at some point.
And they especially look at the leaf looking one, Elysia chlorotica, because they not only recycle the chloroplasts and use them for a bit, no. Like I said, they hang on to them for a while, nurture them, give them a nice one bed one bath to not only live in, but thrive in. Which is something that physiologically, only plants should be able to do. Plants have the structures to provide chloroplasts with the things they need. like proteins, which makes sense.
Fluoroplasts are plant things, and plants are very different from animals. But somehow, these animals are providing these things, too. They're providing plant structures as an animal.
So, HA! Remember how in the brine pools video I mentioned bacteria? How they are very cool because they can get genes from each other, among other things. Which is essentially the equivalent of me high-fiving someone with blue eyes, and suddenly I have blue eyes.
It's called horizontal gene transfer. It's something that bacteria do, fucking all the time, and it seems as though it played a role in this sea slug's ability to house chloroplasts. How, exactly? I couldn't even begin to tell you.
Horizontal gene transfer is like cell biology shit, and if you know me, I don't fuck with cell shit. I want to, I just have a very hard time grasping it at this moment in time. So just know, at some point, they were able to take plant genes and incorporate them into their own genome. Kind of actually becoming part plant, I guess. If you want to read more about it, here's a paper I was looking at, and if you're into cell shit and you read the paper, maybe leave a comment.
And let us know what the fuck is going on. I would love if you did that. And now we're gonna move on. So just a couple of miscellaneous honorable mentions. There really is no sea slug you cannot love.
Like, check this one out. The lion's mane nudibranch. They have a mouth like a net to trap their prey. And apparently, they emit an odor reminiscent of watermelon candy.
Pretty cool. Next, the Spanish dancer. One of the larger nudibranchs, getting up to about a foot long.
Quite flamboyant in their movements. like a flamenco skirt. Next, Goniobranchus reticulatum. They don't have a common name, but you should know them as the disposable penis nudibranch, because they have a disposable penis. What?
Every time they mate, they only use a little bit of it, and then that little bit breaks off. It's like segmented, like those pencils from back in the day, you know, those segmented pencils from the 2000s. So, you know, that's another one. And the donut nudibranch.
I want to eat this one. It looks like an exotic- pasta dish. It looks delicious. They belong to the genus Doto, which also includes species like the bubble nudibranch, Doto Usi, and Doto Bella, which are also very cute. And that's it.
That's sea slugs that I hope you liked. There's plenty more. If I didn't name your favorite, if you have one already, let us know what it is in the comments.
I love nudibranchs, and I would love if you told me about some other ones that I might not know about yet. So, I want to give a little hint to next week's episode. It's the next episode of the History of Life on Earth. We're out of dinosaur territory. On to better things.
I may or may not have some merch coming out that day. It may or may not include some stuff that you may or may not have been asking for for about a year, ever since it was first released about a year ago. It may or may not be making a comeback, along with other things that you might like even more. Maybe you'll like all of them. So be sure to subscribe so you don't miss that announcement in the next episode of the History of Life on Earth.
That we know of. Keep up with behind the scenes updates on Patreon, where you can also check out our Discord server. And for now, stay curious.
The world has a lot for us to learn. See ya!