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Sea Angel — printable fact sheet
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Sea Angel
Clione limacina
Sea angels are shell-less sea slugs of the group Gymnosomata, best known from the polar species Clione limacina, typically only 1 to 4 centimetres long. They are gastropods that abandoned the shell entirely and turned the foot into a pair of transparent wings, which they flap in…
Did you know?
- Sea Angels can survive in freezing waters and are found even under sea ice in polar regions.
- Clione limacina swims by flapping wings that are modified parts of the snail's foot, and it is one of the very few molluscs whose entire body plan is built for open-water hovering. Its feeding hooks and buccal cones are hidden until the moment of attack, giving the head a startling "flowering" appearance. Antarctic amphipods that carry a sea angel as a chemical bodyguard swim measurably worse but are almost never eaten by fish. Because Clione has unusually large, identifiable nerve cells, it is a long-standing model animal in neuroscience for studying how simple circuits generate rhythmic swimming.
What I learned
Draw the sea angel
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