As Bones Encased In Rock Rotted Away, Water-borne Silica Seeped Into The Crevices, Solidifying Into Opal

I have TWO classes this fall! Both of them cover the biology of delightful ocean weirdos, and neither will add stress to your life because there's no grades/homework.

Deep sea Sept 17- Oct 8

Atlas Obscura

In Deep: Life at the Bottom of the Ocean With Dr. Sarah McAnulty

In this 4-part lecture series, explore the extraordinary life that’s evolved to thrive in the deep sea. Course Description It’s often said t

Squid Class Oct 15-Nov 12

Atlas Obscura

Seas The Day: Life Lessons from Cephalopods With Sarah McAnulty

In this five-part lecture series, take a dive into the lives of some of the most complex invertebrates on Earth and learn some life lessons

I met some relatives of my beloved leatherleaf slugs in the mangroves of Singapore, the onch slugs! they’re perhaps some of the slowest-moving animals I’ve ever encountered; this is one in a hurry:

the species pictured is a Platevindex, which are particularly interesting to me since their backs are studded with extra eyes! the dorsal papillae each have a little black dot that’s a photoreceptor, which helps the slug detect changes in light exposure.

onchidiids are marine animals, living on costal rocks and in mangroves, but breathe air and spend much of their time out of the water. like the leatherleafs, they’ve got a dry, tough hide that maintains water balance, but Platevindex takes that to an extreme—when I picked one up, it felt like a vulcanized rubber tire!

Going into 2024 like… 🦀 🖤 😞

Digital illustration of an indigenous man with two braids wearing a jean jacket. There's text that reads, 'Columbus didn't discover anything.'

Fossil diatoms retain their intricately patterned glassy silica shell cases. Called frustules, these may be either rounded or elongated. Living diatoms are single-celled, algae-like protists. They make up much of the plankton in the marine and freshwater food chains. Their shells accumulate by the millions on the seafloor, eventually fossilizing to form a siliceous sedimentary rock called diatomite.

@confidently-regretful

(Sorry to be that guy but) the leaf sheep is not actually a nudibranch, but instead part of the closely related order sacoglossa. Nudibranches are carnivorous while sacoglossa are herbivorous and feed by sucking the sap out of microscopic algae. Many sacoglossa perform a process called kleptoplasty, where they reuse chloroplasts from the algal sap they feed on and implement them into their cells. Some notable examples are the bivalve snails in the family juliidae, the eastern emerald elysia (elysia chlorotica) and obviously the sea sheep. Another slug from the order elysia (elysia rufescens) reuses defensive molecules called kahalalides as well as chloroplasts. Most sacoglossans survive primarily through heterotrophic means (ingesting and digesting) and photosynthesise when food is scarce or unavailable as a last resort. Though research has shown leaf sheep can survive long periods of time with little to no food of heterotrophic or homotrophic (photosynthetic) origin. They store their chloroplasts in cerata, which are structures often found on nudibranches and regularly used for gas exchange or- in blue glaucus’ case- for attack and defence. They also have rhinophores protruding from their face, structures also commonly found on nudibranches, which are chemosensory organs (essentially face tongues) that appear ear like on nudibranches and sacoglossans alike.

To conclude: while leaf sheep are very similar to nudibranches, they belong to the sacoglossan family (which is good because sacoglossans are just as cool) and luckily are not the only animals to photosynthesise.

(I’m researching them for a highschool project and am so obsessed haha)

So not technically a fish but I absolutely love these lil fellas

They’re Nudibranch sea slugs and they all look so pretty!!!!!

Some notable exception are the Sea Bunny (left) which is just the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen

And the Leaf Sheep (right), which is the only animal known to be capable of photosynthesis!

i am SUCH a nudibranch fan oh my god. actual underwater fae creatures. beloved little freak animals. i want to eat them like cereal

just found out that giant squid meat is chock fucking full of ammonium ions to increase buoyancy so they would taste fucking disgusting if you tried to make calamari out of them. i mean i wasn't planning on it but a girl can dream right? nobody talk to me

ScienceAlert

Wild Elephants Invent Names For One Another in Surprise Sign of Abstract Thinking

Elephants call out to each other using individual names that they invent for their fellow pachyderms, a study said on Monday.

Elephants call out to each other using individual names that they invent for their fellow pachyderms, a study said on Monday. While dolphins and parrots have been observed addressing each other by mimicking the sound of others from their species, elephants are the first non-human animals known to use names that do not involve imitation, the researchers suggested. For the new study, a team of international researchers used an artificial intelligence algorithm to analyse the calls of two wild herds of African savannah elephants in Kenya. The research "not only shows that elephants use specific vocalisations for each individual, but that they recognise and react to a call addressed to them while ignoring those addressed to others," lead study author Michael Pardo said. "This indicates that elephants can determine whether a call was intended for them just by hearing the call, even when out of its original context," the behavioural ecologist at Colorado State University said in a statement.

Continue Reading.

Sea stars and friends by Alycia Uyeoka (mostlymarine on Instagram)