Weekend #Plankton #Factoid 🦐🦠
Slug news! Blue Sea Dragons (Glaucus atlanticus) are #Nudibranchs, a soft gastropod "sea slug", which as neuston #zooplankton, float at the water surface. Their extended cerata fingers are used to swim and capture prey.

Beautiful, but don't touch these dragons because they eat floating siphonophores like Portuguese man o' war and concentrate their stinging #nematocysts into sacs, which they deploy if disturbed into a *very nasty sting!
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240313-blue-sea-dragons-texas-beaches-spring-break-sting

Single #gene causes #stinging #cell to lose its sting.

#cniderians #Nematostella #NvSox2 #nematocysts #CRISPR

https://phys.org/news/2023-02-gene-cell.html

The underside of an opalescent nudibranch. A fascinating and colorful type of sea slug common to Puget Sound waters #nudibranch #SeaSlug #opalescent #nematocysts #cerrata #PugetSound #LowTide

Blue dragon - glaucus atlanticus

"Also known as #Sea Swallow, Blue Glaucus, Blue Sea Slug, Blue #Ocean #Slug and Lizard Nudibranch. Washed ashore at Bronte Beach, #Sydney, NSW. Diet: Bluebottle (physalia physalis) Speciality: Stores stinging #nematocysts from the bluebottle within its own tissues, which is additional protection from predation Discovered: 1777, Forster."
#art #nature #photography

Image: Sylke Rohrlach from Sydney. https://flic.kr/p/e6SoyN