The Sea Slugs

Nudibranch

A nudibranch is a member of one suborder of soft-bodied, shell-less marine opisthobranch gastropod mollusks, which are noted for their often extraordinary colors and striking forms. The suborder Nudibranchia is the largest suborder of heterobranchs, with more than 3,000 described species.

The word "nudibranch" comes from the Latin nudus, naked, and the Greek brankhia, gills.

Nudibranchs are often casually called "sea slugs", a non-scientific term. This has led some people to assume that every sea slug must be a nudibranch. Nudibranchs are very numerous in terms of species, and are often very attractive and noticeable, but there are a wide variety of other kinds of sea slugs, and these belong to several taxonomic groups that are not very closely related to nudibranchs. A fair number of these other sea slugs are colorful, and can be confused with nudibranchs.

These other marine shell-less gastropods or "sea slug" groups include additional heterobranch shell-less gastropod groups such as the Cephalaspidea sea slugs including the colorful Aglajidae, and other heterobranchs such as the Sacoglossa, the sea butterflies, the sea angels, and the often rather large sea hares. The term sea slug is also sometimes loosely applied to the only very distantly related, pelagic, caenogastropods within the superfamily Carinarioidea, and may also be casually used for the even more distantly related pulmonate sea slugs, the Onchidiidae.

Nudibranch	Dead End	Lost	Tiny
Wild	Pretty	Hanging out	Nudibranch

Sea hare

The suborder Aplysiomorpha or Sea hares (Aplysia species and related genera) are very large sea slugs with a soft internal shell made of protein. These are marine gastropod molluscs in the superfamilies Aplysioidea and Akeroidea.

The common name "sea hare" derives from their rounded shape and from the two long rhinophores that project upwards from their heads and that somewhat resemble rabbit ears.

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