sea hares

NUDI GILL PIN-UP: California Sea Hare

| Bonnie Kelso

Happy Holidays, everyone! I received the best Christmas present ever this year. I got to hang out at the beach with a whole hoard of sea hares. That’s right, I was poking around the rocks off the Dana Point jetty at low tide. I was marveling at the tiny anemones and itty bitty shrimp, when low and behold, my eyes focused in on a real live bonafide sea slug. I squealed with delight like a four-year-old on Christmas morning.

California Sea Hare

Hey, guess what? Bonnie Kelso, author of Nudi Gill, took this picture!

This little guy was only about two inches long and perfectly camouflaged among the reddish brown seaweed clinging to the rocks, so it’s no wonder I didn’t notice them right away.

Once I discovered this one, oh my, I started seeing them EVERYWHERE! I was literally surrounded by them. Some were even rearing, which got me super excited. It was the perfect way to end a year of Nudi Gill Pin-Ups. You may or may not remember that in January, I covered the California Sea Hare, otherwise known as: Aplysia Californica. So to me it was a perfect bookend for a year of exploring different sea slugs.

Can you find the sea hares in this photo?

I’ll give you a hint. There are two.

California Sea Hares are not endangered. In fact, when you see a bunch of them in one area it’s a sign that the ecosystem is healthy. Even so, you should never handle them. They have a slimy coating that protects them from disease and touching them could disrupt those life-saving properties. They can be dangerous, too, because like nudibranchs they absorb toxins from their food and can poison potential predators as a self-defense mechanism.

Here’s a nice little reddish one. It seemed like the smaller ones where reddish, and the larger ones where more black with white speckles or racing stripes.

Did you find the Sea Hares?

I told you they were hard to see at first!

So you may be asking…

what’s the difference between a sea hare and a nudibranch anyway?

Why are they called Sea Hares?

They are called sea hares because they tend to have wide curled rhinophores that slightly resemble bunny ears. If you have any other questions, feel free to leave them in the comments.

Thank you for revisiting the California Sea Hare with me. I hope you have a beautiful holiday and a happy new year! See you in 2023, with yet another fascinating Nudi Gill Pin-Up.

Best wishes,

Bonnie

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Bonnie Kelso writes and illustrates books for children and adults that encourage individualism and brave self-expression. She facilitates art workshops for her local community and beyond. Her debut picture book, NUDI GILL, releases in March, 2023. A lover of nature and travel, she often wanders about outside with her family whenever an excellent opportunity to do so presents itself.

NUDI GILL PIN-UP: SEA BUNNY

| Bonnie Kelso

To prepare for NUDI GILL, my debut picture book release in September 2022, I will blog about nudibranchs monthly. I hope you will fall in love with these little critters, too. Without further ado, allow me to introduce you to February’s sweetheart of a supermodel:

Jorunna Parva (aka The Sea Bunny)

Sourced from Bored Panda.

Awwwww, so DANG cute!

Am I right? This Valentine’s Day there’s nothing I’d love more than to charm you with fun facts about this sweet little cuddle bunny. So cozy up with your special someone and get ready to unravel this adorable nudibranch’s mysteries. The Sea Bunny, or Jorunna Parva, gets its name from its fluffy appearance. Even its dorsal gills (which it uses to breathe) resemble a cottontail.

“Did my heart love till now?”

– William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

How does the Sea Bunny keep its fur from getting all wet? The Sea Bunny has clusters of tiny rods, called caryophyllidia, that cover its back. These tiny protrusions give the animal’s body surface a texture that resembles fur. Just imagine always looking soft and fuffy, even when you’re drenched in water. Land bunnies can’t manage that.

It’s a big ocean, so how do nudibranchs find each other? Since they cannot see each other, they use their rhinophores to sense each other’s presence. The rhinophores on this sea bunny look like little black bunny ears. Scientists believe that the Sea Bunny’s “fur” rods are also sensory organs.

Izuzuki Diver – http://www.izuzuki.com/Zukan/Slug/doris/gomahuBUU.html

“Love is in the air, in the whisper of the tree

Love is in the air, in the thunder of the sea…”

– John Paul Young, Love Is In The Air (’78)

Do nudibranchs fall in love? If they do, it is probably more of a quick crush. Let’s dive deeper into nudibranch reproduction.

>RATED PG CONTENT AHEAD<

Nudibranchs are simultaneous hermaphrodites. That means they have fully functioning male and female reproductive organs in one body. This is a very fortunate situation for a slow-moving sea slug because they may not encounter another of their kind very often. To mate, they cuddle together side by side, to fertilize each other’s eggs. Now both nudibranchs can lay egg ribbons!

Mating Jorunna funebris pair. Photo taken by Ria Tan

>END OF RATED PG CONTENT<

“Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”

– Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

To watch more sea bunnies in action, check out this video:

Thank you for taking the time to get to know February’s NUDI GILL PIN UP, the Sea Bunny. If you aren’t in love with these creatures by now, well… What’s wrong with you? Do you have a heart of stone? Here’s one more adorable picture to help seal the deal.

Photo taken by Rickard Zerpe (Creative Commons)

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! Stay tuned for March’s exciting NUDI GILL PIN-UP.

Be mine,

Bonnie

Bonnie Kelso writes and illustrates books for children and adults that encourage individualism and brave self-expression. She facilitates art workshops for her local community and beyond. Her debut picture book, NUDI GILL, releases in September, 2022. A lover of nature and travel, she often wanders about outside with her family whenever an excellent opportunity to do so presents itself.

NUDI GILL PIN-UP: Aplysia californica

| Bonnie Kelso

In preparation for NUDI GILL, my debut picture book release in September 2022, I will be blogging about nudibranchs monthly. I’m going to diverge a bit this month to talk about sea hares, which are sea slugs, but are not nudibranchs. My hope is that you will fall in love with these little critters, too. Without further ado, allow me to introduce you to January’s fascinating supermodel:

Aplysia Californica

Sea Hare in Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. Photo: Chad King/NOAA

Like nudibranchs, sea hares have rhinophores, are soft-bodied invertebrates, are hermaphroditic and do not wear exterior shells. You may be asking… “It walks like a nudibranch, reproduces like a nudibranch, is cute and squishy like a nudibranch. So what’s the difference? Well, I can name three.

  1. A sea hare has curled rhinophores like bunny ears. That’s where they get their cute name.

Photo credit: Scott F Cummins, Dirk Erpenbeck, Zhihua Zou, Charles Claudianos, Leonid L Moroz, Gregg T Nagle & Bernard M Degnan. 2009. Candidate chemoreceptor subfamilies differentially expressed in the chemosensory organs of the mollusc Aplysia. BMC Biology 2009, 7:28. doi:10.1186/1741-7007-7-28. Cropped from figure 6

2. Sea hares are vegetarians who mostly eat seaweed. Nudibranchs are carnivores!

3. A nudibranch can’t do this…

Wait for it…

Are you getting excited?

I bet

the

anticipation

is

killing

you!

Or you might be thinking…

This sea hare is

kind of boring

compared to flashy nudibranchs.

Well, you

are in

for a shock!

Okay, here it is:

Aplysia californica emitting ink cloud. Photos by Genny Anderson. http://marinebio.net/marinescience/03ecology/tptre.htm

WHOA! What is going on here?

– said you just now.

The California sea hare has the ability to express purple dye from its body like an octopus. The octopus squirts (typically black) dye to provide a smoke screen or decoy so it can escape when attacked. In the case of the California sea hare, there is no chance of a quick escape. They are slugs after all. It is believed that their dye has an unpleasant taste and that is what ultimately persuades the attacker to move on to a more savory snack. Isn’t that the coolest?

Purple is the new black, my friends!

I hope you enjoyed meeting the fantastic Aplysia Californica sea hare. Stay tuned for February’s NUDI GILL Pin-Up!

Bonnie

Bonnie Kelso writes and illustrates books for children and adults that encourage individualism and brave self-expression. She facilitates art workshops for her local community and beyond. Her debut picture book, NUDI GILL, will be released in September, 2022. A lover of nature and travel, she can be found wandering about outside with her family whenever a good opportunity to do so presents itself.