Glaucus atlanticus with Blue Danube 3 12

Blue Dragon / Sea Lizard - NSW, AUSTRALIA.
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/29056374...

Images may be purchased at:

www.redbubble.com/people/paulhypnos


We have a little cabin on a cliff by the sea. We listened to the storm all night as the waves crashed on the rocks below us. The next morning many ocean drifters had been washed onto the sand and into rock pools.

I spent the morning photographing these amazing animals.

The animal above can eat the stinging cells of other sea creatures and secrete them into special sac at the tip of their cerata. People who picked them up were stung severely. (See below)

This was a morning I will always remember.


" A day in such serene enjoyment spent,
Is worth an age of splendid discontent."
Moliere (pseudonym of Jean Baptiste Poquelin), Tartuffe (act IV, sc. 5)

This nudibranchs feeds almost exclusively on Physalia, it appears that they are able to select the most venomous of Physalia's stinging nematocysts for their own use. Like most aeolids, they store the nematocysts in special sacs (cnidosacs) at the tip of their cerata .


Glaucus atlanticus is a species of medium-sized, floating, blue sea slug, a pelagic aeolid nudibranch, a marine opisthobranch gastropod mollusk in the family Glaucidae

• Category

  • Science & Technology

• License

  • Standard YouTube License