Glaucus Atlanticus
before u say it is pretty let me tell u a thing
remember yesterday’s post, about the portuguese man o'war? Blah blah hideous hivemind creature, blah blah 100-foot tentacles, blah blah horrific neurotoxin. Yeah, these guys eat them.
and they are only 3cm long, approximately the size of a US quarter. FUCK ME.
they’re sea slugs, and are also called the sea swallow, the blue angel, the blue glaucus, the blue dragon, the blue sea slug, and the blue ocean slug. Go fuckin’ figure.
okay yes they are kinda pretty but come the fuck on dude
apparently these little guys are immune to the nematocysts that contain the venom in the man o'war tentacles! They attack and consume the entire organism, poison bladder, death ropes and all. And then they absorb the venom! And collect it in the ends of their little feathery fin thingies (they’re called cerata but who fucking cares) to use for their own defense. And since the venom’s concentrated, they actually have a worse sting than the man o'war does.
so don’t fuckin’ touch it like the chumps in these pictures ok
they don’t only eat the man o'war, of course. Their diet includes a variety of floating thingywhatevers, including the violet snail and something called a ‘blue button’ (weird fuckin’ names for the floating thingywhatevers). They live at the surface of the water, frequently upside-down, held up by an air sac on their bellies.
like so
they’re found in tropical oceans all over the world, drifting in the open sea, swarming and devouring deadly creatures! Oh yeah and they’re cannibalistic, too. And they’re hermaphroditic and when they mate both slugs produce egg strings. So we’re pretty much hitting all the major horror movie themes here, I think.
it’s a real-life Pokemon except it tries to kill us instead of be our friend
