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The blue dragon is a sea slug that can steal the powers of its enemies. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

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WTF Is That Thing: Nudibranch Edition

Look. I’m a lot like you. I spend too much time on Facebook. On Twitter. And yeah, I’ll say it – Pinterest.

I read blogs. I stalk cool writers. I’m what you might call “plugged in” to the incessant pulse of awesomeness we call the internet.

So when I come across something like the Blue Dragon, this strangely metallic gummy-shark of a slug, I mean, I just about get into Tebow stance and thank the gods for the astonishing level of cool at our fingertips ANY TIME WE WANT IT.

Then I take a deep breath, gas up the search bar, and go out on the hunt for the next layer of boom-de-ya-da. Because when something looks as cool as the Blue Dragon does, you just know it’s full of secrets. Or poison. So give me a second to consult the muse and we’ll get this slug show on the road –

Oh, sacred internet – fighter of the Night Man, champion of the Sun. Today, you bring me the nudibranch. And if it please you, I will sing its slimy song. Yea, I will sing its slimy song.

Enter the Blue Dragon

1.  The Blue Dragon (Glaucus atlanticus) is a sea slug. More specifically, it’s a type of nudibranch. (Not all sea slugs are nudibranches, but all nudibranches are sea slugs. It’s not important.)

2.  Nudibranch is a weird word. And it means exactly what it sounds like – naked. Nudibranches are naked snails. Or soft-bodied, marine gastropod mollusks. In really reductive terms, they’re naked sea snails that evolved to live outside of cozy little shells. (Truthfully, “nudi” refers to their naked gills and Blue Dragons start life off as larvae with shells which they later leave. Just keep moving. Murder and poison below.)

3. At just over an inch, Blue Dragons are rapacious predators. What’s more, their favorite food is the Portuguese Man-Of-War – a creature known for growing tentacles 30 to 165 feet long. Well, that and stinging the shit out of Australians. Bonus fact – many think a Man-of-War is a jellyfish. Not true. It is actually a siphonophore, or “an animal made up of a colony of organism working together.”

4.  Unlike most other nudibranches, Blue Dragons prowl the surface of the ocean in search of prey. They do this by swallowing air and skimming along upside down, using those blue stripes as aquatic camouflage.

5.  Then, when they find a juicy Man-of-War they tear it to shreds using a tiny radula, or saw-like tongue. (Well, “tooth-studded ribbon” from hell would be more accurate.)

6.  Blue Dragons aren’t picky. Every part of the Man-of-War is fair game. And that includes the stinging nematocysts.

7.  Is it just me or do you kind of want to eat these things by the fistful like fruit snacks? But this would be a mistake. Remember all that “eating stinging nematocysts” stuff from #6? Well get this. The Blue Dragon can steal the Man-of-War’s attack cells and store them in those funny little fingers – gut-extensions serving as cnidosacs – thereby rendering itself poisonous.

8.  Other nudibranches also do this using the poisons from sponges and nematocysts from anemones. I can’t get a scientist to come out and say this on the record, but nudibranches are basically like Rogue from the X-Men.

8 1/2. If you have ever wondered what the difference between “poisonous” and “venomous” is, there’s a Bittel Me This for that. 

9.  When Blue Dragons can’t find prey, they eat each other. 

10. The Dragon goes by many names, including: sea swallow, blue glaucus, blue sea slug and blue ocean slug.

11. “This is all well and good, but uh… *looks around* …does the thing have a penis?” Seriously, what’s with the internet these days? Are animals only interesting now if they have weird genitals? There used to be a time when… ah, who am I kidding? Blue Dragons have penises. In fact, each Blue Dragon is equipped with both sets of hardware. And no, it didn’t gnaw them off of some other animal and absorb them. They are simply hermaphroditic.

12. There are more than 3,000 known species of nudibranch. And every one will blow your freaking mind. I recommend you go to David Doubilet’s site and buy prints of them to line your walls. I will personally guarantee they’re prettier than whatever you have up there now, like art or candles or photographs of your children.

13. Pictures of the Blue Dragon are getting passed around the internet like the bugger was just discovered, but science has had its eye on them since Captain Cook’s second voyage to the Pacific in 1777.

14. Here we are at the end and part of you is still skeptical these things even exist. It’s cool. Seeing is believing. Nom nom nematocyst.

 

 

Thanks to @AnnFro for the vid. Images courtesy of Nudibranch.com, radula, Blue Dragon Penis