Nudibranchs Offer Clues to Brain Regeneration

New research shows nudibranchs can regenerate parts of their nervous system, offering insights into brain repair.

nudibranchs respond to damage to their nervous systems
Ecology & Science

Nudibranchs—colourful sea slugs often admired by divers—may hold important clues to how nervous systems recover from damage. A new study published in the Journal of Neuroscience shows that some species can regenerate neural connections after injury, shedding light on fundamental biological processes.

Researchers studied how nudibranchs respond to damage to their nervous systems. Findings suggest that nudibranchs restore disrupted neural pathways and regain function, demonstrating plasticity in simple organisms.

How Nudibranchs Reuse Their Prey’s Stinging Cells

New research reveals how aeolid nudibranchs neutralise and repurpose nematocysts from scyphozoan polyps.

Flabellina affinis
Ecology & Science

Some of the ocean’s most striking sea slugs—aeolid nudibranchs—possess an extraordinary ability: they can feed on stinging cnidarians without being harmed, and then capture and reuse their prey’s stinging cells, known as nematocysts, for their own defence. 

New scientific findings have now shed light on how they do it, offering a clearer picture of this remarkable biological strategy.

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The Leaf Slug: Elysia cf. marginata

A vegetarian sap-sucking sea slug that can regrow its entire body? Underwater photographer Wesley Oosthuizen takes a closer look at this curious little marine critter.

Words:
Wesley Oosthuizen
Images:
Wesley Oosthuizen
Chloroplasts inside the leaf slug’s body are thought to aid the species’ ability to regenerate and stay alive even while lacking internal organs
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Ecology & Science

Autotomy, the shedding of body parts, is a well-known phenomenon in the animal kingdom. However, this does not diminish its significance as a topic of discussion. The fact is, we still have much to learn, and the scientists who uncover and share their findings on these matters deserve our admiration. Their discoveries are truly astounding and worth exploring, leaving us to ponder the potential innovations that may arise from understanding how these animals accomplish such feats.

Compound in nudibranchs toxic to cancer cell lines

Findings have implications for treatments of cancer or neurodegenerative diseases.

Ecology & Science

Natural products play an invaluable role as a starting point in the drug discovery process, and plants and animals use many interesting biologically active natural products as chemical defence mechanisms against predators. Among marine organisms, many nudibranch gastropods are known to obtain toxins from what they are eating, such as sponges.

These toxins are used as chemical defences and bright colours to warn potential predators away,

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Japan's Kinki: Macro Mecca of Honshu

Kinki is a ruggedly beautiful peninsula in the southwest of Honshu, Japan. The area is best known for the Shinto shrines of Kumano, which sit atop forested mountains in the center of the region. Each year, thousands of tourists and devotees undertake a pilgrimage through the mountains to reach the tranquil sanctuary, which is said to be a place of physical healing. Japanese divers also flock to Kinki to enjoy the region’s fabulous abundance of endemic marine life.

Words:
Andy Murch
Images:
Andy Murch
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Travel & Trips

Kinki’s southernmost dive spots are draped in lush soft corals, reminiscent of the tropical reefscapes of Southeast Asia, but Kinki is only “tropical” for half of the year. During the winter months, cold water creeps southward from the eastern coast of Russia, lowering ocean temperatures from a toasty 26°C to a rather chilly 10°C. Unperturbed, local divers switch from thin neoprene suits to thick drysuits and continue to enjoy the region’s underwater beauty throughout the year.

Nudibranchs named after Gulen Dive Resort and friends

Owners of Gulen Dive Resort and the editor of Norwegian Dive Magazine Dykking each get a nudibranch species named after them

Ecology & Science
Gulen Dive Resort

Over the years, new species have been found and existing species have been moved to other genera while other species are new. Thus, our colleague Christian Skauge writes that the Flabellina family has now gone "extinct" in Norway because the species therein have now been reclassified and put into other genera.

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Nudibranch Macro: Going Beyond the ID Photo

Nudibranchs are a worldwide favorite for macro photographers, often leading divers on a “wild slug hunt” across the globe. Once these little gems capture your attention, it is very hard to break out of their magic spell. A gateway critter, if there ever was one, the nudibranch combines the beauty of our ocean and natural history in a photogenic and scientific symphony like no other marine animal.

Words:
Mike Bartick
Images:
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Photo & Video

Often referred to as slugs due to their evolutionary path, the grand designs of nudibranchs are as fascinating and varied as there are slugs themselves. Each one of them has evolved in a special manner to survive and reproduce in the many different and challenging habitats in which they are found. Cold water to warm water, benthic or pelagic and at every depth, nudibranchs occur globally and have even been found in brackish rivers.

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Hooded Nudibranchs

Weird creatures from inner space.

Words:
Peter Symes
Images:
David Hall
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Ecology & Science

This strange-looking creature, Melibe leonine, is one of the most characteristic members of the Opisthobranchia. It most notable feature is the large expandable muscular oral hood, fringed with sensory tentacles, which it opens and throws forward in order to catch food in matter similar to a fisherman with a catch net. It is also known as the Lion Nudibranch because of the hoods likeliness to that of a lion’s mane.

Solar-Powered Sea Slug

Elysia chlorotica is a green sea slug. What sets it apart from most other sea slugs is its ability to run on solar power. Shaped like a leaf itself, Elysia chlorotica can manufacture the most common form of chlorophyll, the green pigment in plants that captures energy from sunlight.

Elysia chlorotica, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (CC BY 2.0)
Ecology & Science

Genes supporting photosynthesis have been acquired by the animal via horizontal gene transfer.

Some related slugs also engulf chloroplasts but E. chlorotica alone preserves the little green photosynthetic organelles called chloroplasts, from the algae it eats in working order for a whole slug lifetime of nearly a year. The slug readily sucks the innards out of algal filaments whenever they’re available, but in good light, multiple meals aren’t essential.

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Nudibranch Safari

The 2012 Nudibranch Safari at Gulen Dive Resort was a phenomenal success. A staggering 49 species of nudibranchs and seven other ophistobranchs were identified during the weekend—on one divespot.

Expectations ran high as 16 participants from Norway, Sweden, Denmark and the Faroe Islands gathered at Gulen Dive Resort north of Bergen in Norway to look for nudibranchs the last weekend in March.

Words:
Christian Skauge
Images:
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Travel & Trips

Beforehand, the organizers doubted whether it would be possible to find more species than last year, when participants identified what was at the time thought to be an almost unbeatable number of species: 36 nudibranchs and 4 other ophistobranchs. Their doubts were quickly put to shame as the Nudibranch Safari progressed – but even the most optimistic were surprised at the final outcome.

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