Sea Slugs: Don't Hate Them Because They're Beautiful

  Image: Klaus Stiefel 

These brightly colored, beautiful creatures look as if someone carefully designed their markings. There are thousands of sea slug species known in the world, and many likely remain undiscovered. Each sea slug has both male and female reproductive organs and releases eggs into the water in clusters, which can contain thousands of eggs. 

Sea slugs consume plankton and decaying matter on the ocean floor and algae on rocks and coral reefs. Because they essentially clean the ocean waters, sea slugs are an important part of the marine environment. 

The fact that they remain motionless much of the time makes the animals easy prey for lobsters, crabs and other sea creatures. Sea slugs are often caught by humans for food, and also for traditional medicine in eastern cultures, some of which believe that they have healing properties. 

See more photos at i09  

  Image: Steve Childs and Silke Baron

   Image: Bernard Dupont and Raymond  

  Image: Steve Childs

  Image: Kehan Herman


  Image: Min Sheng Khoo


Image: Klaus Stiefel 

   Image: Steve Childs


Image: Ria Tan 

  Image: Taso Viglas


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Newest 4 Comments

Is it true that you should never eat any sea creature that's blue? I read something that said an animal, colored blue, was indicative of being highly poisonous.
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