The search for an elusive sea creature is also the chance to rediscover a mysterious underwater world. Read more about it by clicking the link below.
Slowly and deliberately, I searched shallow, underwater outcrops covered in colors. Weightless amidst the invisible push and pull of the current, pink coralline algae hung closely to rock surfaces or branched skyward against sporadic patches of neon green and glimmering iridescence. Shades of yellow, brown, white and orange flora began to appear as I drifted past micro-environments dictated by sunlight and structure.
Nudibranchs are invertebrates — backboneless organisms in the kingdom Animalia — that include 2,000 different species, many of which are best known for their wildly diverse and colorful appearance. But what’s beautiful to humans is to other animals an aposematic signal — a warning not to eat this creature. Nudibranchs’ bright coloration is intended to indicate unpalatability, and comes from a diet rich in animals armed with cnidocytes, the stinging cells common to sponges, anemone, and coral.
Winter brought on larger ocean swells and poor visibility, not ideal for diving, so I spent the season connecting with an online niche of local artists, photographers, conservationists, and scientists advocating for Monterey Bay and its inhabitants. Among the stories and images this group shared, nudibranch sightings stood out most — like the radiant purple body lined with a mohawk of graceful but toxic orange horns, or cerata, belonging to the Spanish shawl .
I also studied up on the latest research on nudibranchs. In the Indo-Pacific in 2021, Sayaka Mitoh was the first scientist to observe and record a surprising feat of evolution in nudibranchs: self-decapitation. To overcome parasites that may infect the nudibranch’s body, the animal uses autotomy, or self-amputation, to rid itself of infection. Only the head, with two sensing horns, remains. Researchers reported that the Elysia marginata reincarnated its full body in three short weeks.
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