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Violet Sea Snail — printable fact sheet
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Violet Sea Snail
Janthina janthina
The violet sea snail (genus Janthina) spends its entire life hanging upside down beneath a raft of its own bubbles at the surface of the open ocean, and it cannot swim. It builds the raft with its foot, which it repeatedly extends above the surface film to trap a pocket of air, …
Did you know?
- The Violet Sea Snail cannot swim and relies entirely on its bubble raft to stay afloat—if it loses this raft, it sinks and cannot survive.
- The violet sea snail builds a raft by trapping air bubbles in mucus with its foot, and it will drown if it loses it. It eats Portuguese men o' war, which are many times its size, rasping into them apparently unharmed by the stings. Its shell is countershaded upside down, dark on top and pale beneath, because the snail itself hangs upside down. Males have no copulatory organ and simply release drifting packets of sperm into the open ocean.
What I learned
Draw the violet sea snail
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