Nudibranchology (GLAMOROUS SEA SLUGS) with Jessica Goodheart and Terry Gosliner

Alley Ward, this isologies. These are Nudobranks. We're talking sluggy beauties that you didn't

“know you need to love the designs, the drama, the discoveries, Nudobranks. What are they?”

They're soft, bodied mollisks of the sea. They live in the tropics to the far snowy corners of Antarctica from the shallows to the depths. We're going to hear all about them. There's so many species to love. So many that we call it upon two members of the same species, both humans, Nudobranksologists who live on opposite sides of the continent, but love Nudobranks equally. One is the senior curator of California Academy of Sciences in vertebrate zoology and geology department.

In San Francisco, he has been there since 1982. He is a legend among people who wear

wet suits for a living. We're going to talk all about it. Our second expert, I know, we almost never

have more than one expert, but there was just too much to talk about. It's an assistant curator at the American Museum of Natural History and studies the biodiversity and evolution of marine invertebrates, including Nudobranks. Yes, Nudobrankology, it's a word. It means nude or naked gills or brinkia slugs without sideblings and they have so much more going for that. We're going to get into it. But first, a quick thank you to all the listeners supporting us

via Patreon.com/ologies where you can submit questions before we record and you can join that for one dollar a month. Thank you to everyone who's there. We also have all the geese merch.

“If you want to put us on your bodies at oligiesmerch.com and for zero dollars, you can help us out”

so much by just living a review. I do read them all and they keep me going on days when I open the news and I want to die under the porch like an old dog. So let's stick together, but thank you, Riley Rainbow, who wrote, "I'm officially the coolest at dinner parties. My co-workers and family like my weird facts." Also, they're right. If you have children, there's smallities, 100 air horns. My kids ask for their podcast every morning on their latest school.

Thank you so much for the review, Riley Rainbow and also for the reminder that we have totally curated kid-sape episodes that are trimmed down for carpool length. They're available in their own separate podcast feed. They're called Smollegies, SMOLOG, IES. Again, look for it where we find podcasts, tell a friend. Okay, let's get into the weeds in the sea grass and the rocky crevices to

discover facts about bunny horns, finger backs, stolen weaponry, eventful first dates, high fashion,

tiny eyes, marriage equality, sea slug, cameos, the board game you need, how your phone can warm a scientist heart and the best reason to slip on a windbreaker and leave the house with marine biologists, researchers, mythologists, and of course new to brainologists, doctors, Jessica Goodheart and Terry Goslinger. Terry Goslinger. Perfect. Now, you have been studying aquatic creatures since you were just a

wee thing in high school up in the Bay Area, correct? That is absolutely right, yeah. Have you been a water person your whole life? Do you like getting in a dive suit and getting into the water or do you mostly just love the discovery? I'm a water person. I was a swimmer in high school. I feel like I sprouted gills at an early age and haven't looked back. Can you kind of take me back to the first time that you saw a new to bring in the wild? Was it

“fresh water? Was it salt water? Was it in a tight pool naked eye? Do you remember some of those”

first sightings? I remember it very clearly. Like I was yesterday. I had seen pictures of native branks in books and I always wanted to see one and the wild. And as a kid, I went out to

local tide pools and looked around and I never found one. And then I had this amazing high school

biology teacher who used to take classes out to all kinds of environments and we did a lot of exploring and so I told him that I really wanted to see a new to brank and he said I can make that happen next week. And so we went out to the tide pools and it turned out I wasn't looking in the right place. And immediately I saw this beautiful red blue and yellow native brank in the tide pools and

finding out more about those animals today. Is there any way to estimate how many kinds of

“new to branks are out there? I did a paper trying to predict what that might be and we said”

this was back in the mid-1990s that there were probably 6,000 species of new to branks and after looking at the recent data they're probably three to five times that amount. So well maybe up to 30,000 species of new to branks. In which by contrast there's what less than 5,000 species

of mammals, right? So this is we're talking about incredible diversity and numbers and you have

discovered over a thousand species, 1500s, how many species have you discovered? About 1500. But we've only formally named about 450 of them. So we got a lot of work to do. And fortunately I have a great group of students and other collaborators around the world that I work with and we can make some headway but I find them faster than I can work on them. Okay well you were obviously not doing something right and then you learned how to do something extremely right. Exactly. What was that trick

to finding them? Well it was knowing the right habitat and I was looking in this other tide pool area that was maybe 100 yards away from Nirvana. Once I knew to go over this ridge and look in the tide pools on the other side of the ridge it was a magical world. I cannot adequately describe the otherworldly beauty of these sea slopes. Picture a chiclet were a lot of inch but it's made of squishy flesh with a ridge along its back of these finger-like nubbins called cerata. They're used

for breathing or defense and they're just swaying with the currents so gently. Now new to ranks they can range a rainbow of color pallets. Like there's one with a colbal blue body striped with pumpkin orange. Others it look like a lilac flying carpet with two bunny ears and a yellow pom-pom tail that's actually gills or brinkial plumes. There are ghostly white nuda ranks instead of with these short black bumps and two horns on the head that look like smoldering matchsticks. Others look

like tiny giraffes and her velvety black with acid green spots and a tail like a peacock if it were made out of slug feathers. Some nuda ranks breed out of a rosette of streamers surrounding their butthole. They are better creatures than us. Do not google nuda-brank colors if you're high.

“It will break you. If you need to cuddle a nuda-brank, don't. But do visit a site called a wool”

creature lab featuring the work of fiber artist arena borivic who handcrafted an entire menagerie of tiny felted wool nuda ranks to pay homage to their real life slimy sisters.

Nuda ranks you may have never heard of one until this moment but they will slam stars in your eyes

so hard. Terry is not the only nuda-bringologist consumed with wonder. I also chatted with a scientist who uses to nomics to investigate their evolution and is an assistant curator of mollisks at the American Museum of Natural History's Good Heart Lab in New York. I am just a good heart and my pronouns are she here. I bet you people tell you how much they love your name constantly. Yeah, it's very common but we're like do you have a good heart? That's another one.

“Do you think people are nicer to you because of your name?”

I don't know the answer to that. That's a good question. I guess I would never know.

It's not going to know for sure. You could change it and see if people are rude to you. Yeah, but I don't recommend it. Probably not. Have you always been more of an aquatic person than a terrestrial person? Definitely. I much prefer the ocean to anything else. But I also grew up in California so I think that changes the dynamic of it. Dr. Goodheart told me that she was technically from West Covenast.

A suburb 30 or so miles east of LA, which features prominently in the beloved musical comedy series crazy ex girlfriend. Well, we have two hours from the beach. Well, foreign traffic. And so you grew up in California, somewhat near the ocean. Was there like an early interest and like I got to do a job that gets me in that water? I have to be in that water. So yes, I mean, when I was a kid, we would go to the beach and we would dig up the sand crabs

But we would dig those up and I love like picking a mum putting them in a bucket and looking at them.

“But then as I got older, I didn't really know that this job existed. I guess. So I started”

preparing to be a vet. I wanted to study to be a veterinarian and I just didn't really like it. I thought I would. I love animals, but it just wasn't really for me. Jessica says that her parents weren't scientists, so she didn't have a blueprint, but she loved biology classes and she reached out to a researcher who happened to study sea slugs so careers. Sometimes to get to the right spot, you got to go all over the place. Speaking of what about their range? Is it rare to see a new

to break or are they in every marine environment? They are everywhere. I would say like you can't

find them in the deep sea. You can find them in obviously the tropics in polar areas. Like they are

everywhere. Whether you can see them or not, I think is a different question. Sometimes they're harder to see in certain places than others or certain animals are harder to see. And certainly in the tropics, you tend to get a lot more diversity and it's easier. But they're usually there if you know kind of where and how to look. How where and how do you look? There's a couple of ways, I guess. So we look. We scuba dive. We snarkle. Sometimes we just do tide pooling or we do what I

call docking, which is just going on floating docks and looking on the side. Usually there's a

“bunch of growth. But basically you look for their prey and you should be able to find new to”

ranks as long as they're in season. So once you start getting farther north, you can have more seasonality, I would say. And sometimes they do kind of wash in and then wash out. You might see hundreds or thousands of them all in one spot and then like the next week they're totally gone. Because they've finished reproducing and that's it. Where do they like to live? And I mean this might be not a very smart question, but are there fresh water new to ranks or are they all

in marine environments? They're all in marine environments. There's some relatives of new to ranks that are found in some fresh water streams and tropical environments, very close to where they empty into the ocean. So there's some that can live in fresh water, but they're not true new to ranks. They're like new to rank cousins. And they can survive in fresh water. Okay, so the true new to ranks that are in marine environments. What type of vibe do they like? What type of habitat

is perfect for them? Does it have a lot of algae in it? Does it have a lot of rocky surfaces? Do

they like to hide? Well, you can find new to ranks almost anywhere as it turns out. And basically

you find a higher diversity in rocky environments and in places like California and title polls along with coast. But the greatest abundance and where I've spent most of my time studying new to ranks is in tropical coral reef ecosystems. But you can find them off sandy beaches. You can find them down in the deep ocean. You can find them in the Arctic and Antarctic

“whatever their salt water their new to ranks. What kind of places have you ended up going?”

Looking for them. Oh, a lot of cool places. So since I started the lab, we've done collecting in Florida and other like semi-local places so in the US. I went to Western Australia. I took my lab discotland. We have field expeditions planned to Madagascar and American Samoa. I've been to French Polynesia, pop in a guinea Panama. They're everywhere so it's really nice to be able to just kind of go wherever I want and there's sea slugs there. There's new to ranks there.

Did you ever think we're going up like your passport would be this stamped because of sea slugs? I definitely didn't. Mostly because I don't think I really understood what sea slugs were. I've been really good picture though of myself that I found going through my parents garage a couple years ago. It's a picture of me. I have been like six or seven, holding a sea slug, holding a big, a Pleasure, California, which is one of the big ones of the tide pools to see here.

And I had no idea this picture existed and I found it. I'm like, oh, that's cool. So actually, I recreated the picture. I was in San Diego at the time. So I wore like as much of a similar outfit as I could and I held up the sea slug and I made the same face, which was a pretty disgusted face to be all. What exactly is a sea slug? What is a new to rank? So all new to ranks are sea slugs, but not all sea slugs are new to ranks. So in general,

the way that we qualify, what is a sea slug? There within this group called heterobrankia. It also contains pollinates, our land snails and slugs. So it's not just sea slugs. It's not just

ones that either have a reduced shell. So a shell that for whatever reason is either internal or

“just smaller, so they can't really retract into it the same way. Or they've just lost it completely”

as adults. And that's sort of how we classify them. They used to be called a piss the brinkia, but we realize later that it actually, they've lost shells multiple times. So as we have said, all cacti are succulents, but not all succulents are cacti. And new to ranks are in an order all their own because they have no shells as adults and they have external gills like those bronchial plumes, or they breathe through those fingery cerata on their back. And they use those bunny

ears aka rhinophores to sense what's happening around them. All in a quest to eat stuff, to make more new to ranks and survive the haters. But there seems to be a lot of transitions to different prey types which may be involved. Them evolving these really cool defense mechanisms may have allowed them to diversify. They're so diverse and yet they seem like they would be so vulnerable because they're out in the ocean where everything's looking for a snack. And here are these squishy,

beautiful, really things. Exactly. How did they evolve to survive all these environments?

Well, that's really an interesting story. But basically, they evolved other defense mechanisms.

They feed on a wide variety of things like sponges that are very toxic. They feed on sea enemies and jellyfish and their relatives and they can incorporate the stinging cells from their prey into their own bodies and use them for a defense mechanism. So they've figured out some very clever ways to basically exploit chemical defense and chemical warfare as a way of being able to crawl around without a shell. And if you think about it, building a shell is

“energetically very expensive to produce a shell. You have to incorporate calcium carbonate,”

you then have to secrete it and then you're burdened with crawling around with your house on

your back like a camper truck. And basically, it doesn't allow you to have the kind of mobility

and freedom of movement and it weighs a lot. So being free of a shell has opened up a whole new world for native banks in terms of ecological and evolutionary opportunities. Speaking of a whole new world, well, I guess that's, I think that's a different Disney movie, but are there new to banks in the little mermaid? Should there be? There must be. I haven't looked that closely, but if the animators were doing their job,

they're definitely not. What about finding Nemo? I wonder if finding Nemo has new to banks. Yeah, I've seen new to banks in the background and finding Nemo for sure. I did find a pair of new to banks who are extras in the little mermaid. They each have an orange underside and a Barbie pink body with deep, fuchsia accents. And they appear to be based on Mexico Miss Mariah. And while I really appreciate the attention to detail on that color palette,

I did notice that this canuddling new to bring couple made up of one plain faced partner

“and another with eyelashes and lipstick was so heteronormative. I think it means that the little”

mermaid researchers either were ill informed about new to bring gender fluidity or they just wrongly assumed that the world wasn't ready for it. Now finding Nemo though went a solo route in it features one blood red fluttering hexa branches sanguineus, also known as the Spanish dancer. And it's got this wide, ribbony body and kind of a ballet level grace as it unulates in the water. Alas though this fancy dancer has but a cameo. No speaking parts. Is the world still not ready?

Maybe it's time that there's a Pixar movie about them or at least featuring one. I think so. Yeah. I agree with that. I also think there'd be a good board game. Have you ever played wingspan? Yes. Yes. I think there should be a new to bring version of wingspan for sure. Like a sea slug version. There's a lot of really cool sea slugs. wingspan of course. You know this. It's that instant classic table top game about

orthology. It was created by a letterologist or professional game designer and nature enthusiast, Elizabeth Hargrave. I've been thinking about emailing her for a long time and I just I don't know. I felt almost too nerdy. Like thinking that I might suggest that and be like, "Oh God, more new to bring stuff. I totally do new to bring." But I don't know. It's my thing, right?

then you get to work with them, then it's okay to be the new to bring guy. You know what I mean?

“Absolutely. Yeah. But yeah, I think the game would be great. So I had the fortune of being”

introduced to Elizabeth via a nigh mythology guest, the magician and professional crossword writer, David Cron. So I did what anyone with excess gettingness might do. And I emailed Elizabeth to tell her that Jessica says that new to brings dessert reward game. And Elizabeth shot me back and know. She said that she quote, "Love's that idea from what little I know about new to brings, mostly that they look awesome." So if these sea slugs don't someday make it to your dining room

table for game night, maybe an animator out there will be inspired to up their visibility.

So deserved. I feel like they are ready for their own animated movie because they're dazzling and they're stunning. They already look like cartoons. Can you describe visually some of the new to brings out there because I, when I see pictures, they look like AI. Well, they do. Yeah. Only AI's less creative. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. You know, there's some really great examples of how new to branks have entered into popular culture and

you know, there's a website that shows David Bowie in various outfits and actual species

of new to branks that that actually have the same outfits. And so anything that David Bowie could

come up with new to branks did it before. So that's a really great example of how creative the costume design component of new to branks really is. And if you think of Pokemon, the Pikachu is based on a new to brank. Is it really? It really is. And there's a brand new species of new to brank that we've discovered that has the exact same color pattern and it looks just like Pikachu. So they have inspired some actual creation of animation characters in terms of

Pokemon. This is true. And if you don't believe me, you can get yourself in front of the 2019 article in the Journal of Geek Studies titled Pokemonleska, the Molysk inspired Pokemon, which has a wealth of information and visual aids with Pokemon characters and their marine inspirations. And if that sounds backwards, you're also right. There's at least one new to brank named after a Pokemon, such as the tiny elusive and yellow Pikachu new to brank, which is known

in business settings as the casserole pacifica. But in new to brankology,

“all roadside to Pokemon, or they circle it like around about. I think the hard part though is”

it's hard for me to recreationally dive anymore because I have a hard time not looking for new to branks. Like it's just the thing that I'm automatically like wired to do now. Got to catch them all and you got to check it out. I did love Pokemon as a child again. They're so, so beautiful and so freely and bright colored. But I'm sure that those are probably the ones that are sticking in our heads a bit, but do they range visually from

ones that blend into their environment to ones that are maybe give off a lot more warning colors? Yeah, and that's a really good point is that some of them are incredibly skilled at building color patterns that blend in. I mean, amazingly like there's some that are found on sea grass that are grassy green with stripes, the exact width and spacing of the veins in the sea grass. There's some that are very skilled at hiding as well as those that are

really just over the top in terms of advertising their presence in the natural world. What does a field day look like for you? Like when you're in the field, do you have a loop? Do you have to go out at low tide? How do you, you must be so good at those puzzles where you

“have to spot the difference? Do you must have such a good attention to detail?”

Well, oftentimes, you know, I equate it to an Easter egg hunt because you're looking for these brightly colored objects that are hidden at the base of bushes, which are in the case of the ocean. There are high droids or brisons or branching things. And you're looking for these tiny little things that are just living jewels that are buried in this big world and suddenly you see them. And it's just magical in terms of what they reveal. And so being able to spot them

and, you know, once I got to where I needed reading glasses, I needed to have a loop

or some way of magnifying things. Remember, he's been studying new to brink for approximately 60 years. That's a lot of new to brink spotting. If you two need a loop either now or down the road and you want to know why your eyes are so mean to you, our ophthalmology episode with Dr. Rainwainus can explain it or our recent optical technology episode about how glasses work. Is there fuel? They will tell you how they got on your face. I do have some visual aids underwater now.

But I think the opportunity is for people younger than 40 to be the best spotters of

“new to brink. But it takes a trained eye. And you have to know what you're looking for.”

You have to know what potential prey might look like and what things they might be eating on. And then searching very carefully once you find those things that are likely targets. What are they out there eating? Plank them? Do they ever eat their own babies? They may target one thing, but they have a lot of things in their digestive system. But they're carnivores. So things like sponges or medarians or what else briso and things like that.

Other animals essentially carnivores. That surprises me. I thought they'd be out there eating algae. Nope. Yeah. They're eating other animals. There's even there's a genus that eats egg masses of

other new to brinks. Or eats like basically the embryos of other new to brinks.

Yeah. That's some new to brink the other new to brinks. A baby muncher. She's the weed. I know. It's brutal. That was hungry. But I could still eat in terms of the evolution of things. How how far back did they go? I can't imagine that they would fossilize well because they're so squishy. Well, and this is really what I find an intriguing point because when I first started studying new to brinks, they have virtually no fossil record. So the advantage of that is that

you aren't in comfort by fact. So you can make up scenarios that you want and speculate a little bit. But now we have modern tools with the advancement of studying DNA. You can see how much evolutionary divergence there is in their genetic material. And that tells us, in fact, they go back

at least 250 million years. Wow. And when they first lost, probably lost their shells because

they diverged from their closest relatives that have a shell about 250 million years ago. So it would be absolutely a flame to think that new to brinks never developed a shell. They just

“were over it. And they were on to the next thing. And they had better defenses?”

No, they do have a shell. Oh, what? As a larval stage, all new to brinks have a shell. The larva has a tiny little coiled shell that looks just like a little snail shell. And once they spend a few weeks in the plankton and they experience the cue for metamorphosis, which is usually their adult foods species. Once they detect that and they've reached a certain level of maturity, they immediately drop down to the bottom and literally crawl out of the shell

and become a new to brink. So people say, "Well, slugs are really primitive. They don't have shell." Well, in fact, it's the opposite. They are a higher form of evolution and have discarded their shell. So when it comes to shells, new to brinks are less as more. But when it comes to their feathery crest or serrada or bronchial plumes on their back or their rhino four antlers, they are flashy. They're like your crate and from Boca if she got invited to the metgala. But their gills still are new.

They're still out there and unprotected, right? Yeah. Can you explain a little bit how how their gills are working? Are they taking oxygen out of the water like any gilled kind of animal or why

“why don't gills so prominent in their identity? That's a really good question. And I think part of the”

reason is that there are a lot of color patterns that are associated with the gills. And because they have greater activity because they are not in comfort by a shell, their metabolism is much higher. And so they need more oxygen. And Terry says that the gills have become way fluffier than what a

serve. Let's talk in the matter. Cists. No, a snail. They got a house. They have a ceramic feeling

house. They're like sea. I'm in here. Slugs out there raw dog in it in the ocean. So does that mean that they just have to have like weaponry or like defense? Do they tend to evolve other ways to be like, don't you dare eat me? Yeah, it seems like it. So a lot of new debris and send other sea slugs have. They can sometimes make their own defenses, but they often seal defenses. So some seal the singing organelles are singing structures from the audience, like jellyfish or

anemones, other steel chemical defenses from their prey like sponges. And now when you say

“these stinging type of structures, when they steal them, where do they dip, um, like a purse?”

Like do they have a pocket? Do they just absorb them? Do they eat them? And then they come out. How does that even work? Yeah, I really like the purse idea. So new debris have this special structure similar to all other snails and a lot of other mollusks. It's called a

ragila. And when they eat, they basically scrape pieces of tissue off of their prey. Like imagine,

if you were sitting down to eat a block of cheddar, but you had no teeth, but your tongue was a cheese grater. So in this case, it would be, let's say, anemone where they're just sort of breaking pieces off. When that happens, these stinging structures they fire from the anemone. So they have this sort of cuticle lining early on in their digestive system that allows them to protect themselves from that. But not all of them fire. So what happens is the ones that haven't fired, move up into

their digestive gland. And they have these special sacks. You could say a purse or something like that, a little bit of an arsenal. So to speak, at the very end of their, they have these like finger-like

projections off their backs. They're called Serrada. And inside the very tips of those are these special

sacks. And in those sacks, there's these cells that actually pick up these structures and keep them

“and that's how they're sort of stored until they're used for infants. And they're stored,”

but they don't fire off like firecrackers on accident. Like how do they make sure they don't peep, peep, you know. Yeah, yeah, it's a good question. There's a couple of ways we think this might happen. There's some evidence that some new to brand, at least one species that has been investigated, the mucus that they have on their bodies seems to somehow prevent some of them from firing. Not all of them, but some of them. But then what we think is happening inside their bodies is that

these stinging structures have some sort of maturation process that hasn't finished. And so they can't fire until that process is complete. And so we think it's happening is that their immature going through the digestive system, they get picked up and somehow are able to finish their development or finish getting ready to fire inside of the new to brand. Nots. And if you're still hungry for more facts on that, you can feast on a recent good heart lab

paper titled a subset of conserved, phagocytic genes are likely used for the intracellular theft of nedarians stinging organelles in new to brand gastropods, which looks at how different tissues hang on to the consumed organelles to repurpose for defense. And some species can grab an immature stinging organelle from their prey and then they cram it up into a little sack at the tip of their cerata, kind of poised like a poison dart in nerf gun. And then there's a little hole

in the tip of that finger-like appendage, the cerata, that then they can expel and induce the firing of those nematis. How they actually do that is really not understood yet at this point. And it points out to one of the things that's so true of most of nature is there's so many things that's still need to be studied and understood. And there's so many opportunities for future generations of young scientists to help solve some of those riddles that we simply don't know about yet.

“When they're using those stinging appendages, are they stunning prey to eat? Are they zapping predators?”

Are they killing anything that's trying to eat them? Like, what kind of range of this ammo? Are we looking at? Is it artillery here? You know, if something tries to nibble on it, it gets a bad taste in its mouth and it it learns to recognize the color pattern and will avoid trying to feed on them in the future. And oftentimes when a fish or another visual predator tries feeding on a new brink,

it ends up spitting it out and the new to brink crawls away on harm.

in the lab where after a new to brink has created this horrible experience for a fish and you can

actually see it what's happening to the fish. It'll sit there on the bottom looking really unhappiness. Gills will be flaring and it will look like it's, you know, if it could barfe it would do that, you know. I mean, it sounds like hot ones that. Yeah. Yeah, it's like trying

“to eat lots of different intensities of chili peppers. Yeah, I think inside of your body”

is made out of its best fish. And then on the other end of the spectrum, there's some that feed on things like the Portuguese Manor War, jellyfish. And so the nematisists are exactly the

same as the Portuguese Manor War. So they if someone sees one of those new to brinks,

they're usually live in the open ocean, but they occasionally get driven ashore by winds and if you find one of those new to brinks on the beach and you pick it up, you'll get the same sting as you would if you'd picked up a Portuguese Manor War. So they can really pack a wall up in some cases. Have you ever four science had to put a new to brink in your mouth to see what that is like or gets stung by one? I have when I was younger and less smart. I tried putting a

new to brink in my mouth and it wasn't really horrible, but it was that sort of peppery kind of feeling and numb lips for probably about 15, 20 minutes. You definitely knew that you had something in your mouth that you shouldn't have. You were like that dejected fish just sitting on a rock going, what have I done? Yeah. What have I done? What is this a good idea? You lived to tell the tale.

“I did. What do you have to do? I know we've done, um, Rebecca home, we've covered midu”

sology and cox analogy and do not pee on it. You don't need to pee on it. You don't need to pee on anything, right? I want some apparently. So what are in that? Is it an emergency situation like call a helicopter get airlifted to hospital if you get stung by a new to brink? Most of them know. I mean, most of them are not bad. So, you know, in touch tanks, when you go to Aquaria, often you see a nemenies in there and you touch them, and they're kind of sticky,

those are the nematuses. So in that case, you know, it's not a big deal. But I think there are a few species that we know feed on things that are a bit more dangerous. And there are some times when I touch them and I can feel it a little bit. They're usually not that bad. But I don't actually

“know about the Portuguese manor or nematuses. I feel like they're pretty dangerous, but I don't know”

that they'll kill you. I don't want anyone to think that they should touch them, because that's true though. More coming up on one of the weirdest looking sea creatures. This inch-long glocus edlanicus aka the blue angel aka the blue sea dragon aka the sea swallow aka the dragon's lug. It lives up to the name. What about sexual dimorphism? Okay, well, this is another really interesting and somewhat kinky part of the blue-to-brain creep reduction. Is that they're

all hermaphrodites. They have both sexes in the same individual. And you might ask, well, why would they do that? And what we found is that this is an adaptation that you find in a lot of organisms that have relatively low populations that will basically devote more energy to producing both eggs and sperm and the complex reproductive organs they need to exchange eggs and sperm with each other.

So they can't fertilize themselves. They have to outcross with another individual. And I always

equate this of basically, if you had a drawer full of socks and you weren't really careful and you didn't put all your socks by pairs after you got them out of the laundry and you just put them in the drawer. But if they're all the same color, then any two makes a pair. And that's just if all the nutrients have both reproductive organs, any two that encounter each other can mate and produce offspring. And so it's an adaptation for relatively low populations.

Let us celebrate the same socks marriage. I wish over that easy and our species. What about how that insemination happens? I know with terrestrial slugs, it can be this really

neuterbrinks? And I understand some sea slugs even will have like cranial traumatic insemination like it runs the gamut from in terms of romance. Yeah. How is that reproduction happening? So neuterbrinks, they don't live very much in a visual world. They're more living in a chemical world. They have eyes, but those eyes usually aren't image-forming eyes. They're just detecting light and dark. And so to find a mate, they're detecting other members of their same species

by chemical means. And so they're tracking them down. And it's basically, you know, having

perfume as an attractant. It's wafting across the plane and you're following that intoxicating

“sense. And so that's how neuterbrinks come in contact with each other. But then once they encounter”

each other, some species are actually cannibalistic. Oftentimes, if two encounter each other and it's a cannibalistic species, if they're of different sizes, the larger one will eat the other one. Before mating or after or not mating at all. Before mating. Oh, no. Sometimes before mating, but usually the eating driver is seems to be more intense than the reproductive one. Wow. Sometimes you're just more hungry than horny. Mother nature knows priorities. Others, if they are the same size,

they will mate. But then sometimes, one of them will eat the other one. They got what they need it. Yeah, they got what they needed. And they have the reproductive organs on their right side of the body. And so two individuals will pull up next to each other with their two right sides. It's almost like going to drive up window at a fast food restaurant. And, you know, one of them gives offers money in the other one, you know, gives you your happy meal. And it truly is a happy meal for

someone. Oh my god. So yeah, if you lived in a small town, it was really hard to meet people or you were just really far away from other folks. You might have a better shot at love if everyone's by new to ranks get it. Also, I did peak a gander at what they're working with. Obviously, it varies by species, but sometimes it just looks like two worms kissing. As further but, some species have that circle of brinkial plumage like a puffy tail. They breathe through. And that

can be called a butt flower because you stare down the barrel of it. And that anus is right in the middle. Don't they kind of a poop on their own back and gills? Sure. Guess what? The ocean is like surround sound, but a bidet. So whatever, Freddie and Eli, Reese Perini and Andy Pepper, as well as Amanda Lask wanted to know, Andy Pepper says, I know they're hermaphroditic, but can't fertilize themselves. So what's the point? If you still need a partner, so what is going on

“down south, which might be near their head with a slug, you never know where that's going to be?”

Yeah, it is near their heads, actually. So yeah, new to brink, so are, for the most part, simultaneous hermaphrodites is how we would call it. So they have both male and female reproductive

systems at the same time. There is some evidence that they might like develop the male parts first

and be able to produce sperm first, which makes sense. They're kind of cheap. In a lot of ways, so it doesn't take as long, maybe to generate them. So I think the most interesting aspect of this those, even though they can't self-fertilize, they do what we call reciprocal mating. So every time they're reproducing, it's not just one way transaction. It's like, they're both kind of getting something out of it to maximize the chances of everything working, I suppose.

“And is it a sea slug that will do traumatic insemination? Yeah, so that's, I think there's second”

glossons that do that. It's like hypodermic insemination, where they just sort of stab and crawl away. Yeah. But as far as I know, there's no new to brink, that do that. There are much more, I guess, kind. It's good to know. Yeah, it's good. I would have pinned that on them, too. So I'm glad that we could clear up that flimplam. I would have blamed them for that. Yes, kind. Aside from meeting up for

a first date and finding your partner shorter than expected, so you eat them. Or maybe you noticed

that they had babies, and then you slurper them up like Boba. No to brink's can be messy. Speaking of offspring, are they hard to keep in Aquaria? Can I curse on the show? Of course you can.

Faniay. Hello, it's still the story that this is actually a species that my master's advisor

on how well this he named after his wife, Stephanie, which is really nice. So we have that in the lab, and that's partly because it's actually easy to get it to like not just lay eggs into survive,

“but also we are able to get the larvae to hatch into juveniles. Oh, that's honestly the biggest”

problem is getting them to settle. Yeah. So what is coined a nudge, a larval new to brink into its adult form? If you know, please tell Jessica, so she can tell all the other frustrated new brinkologists all over the earth because it is not easy, folks, and it's different for like all tens of thousands of species. It might be the food source cues, might be the exact temperature and strength of the currents. Perhaps it's whatever anemony that they're feeding on,

and they just don't like it that day. So yeah, being a parent to thousands of fledgling newties, it's not a task for the weak hearted. Did they lay eggs, and then the babies just go like good luck, and then they kind of are up in the plankton with their tiny tiny little shells until it's

“time. So are they just like kind of what are done like good luck out there kiddos? It's pretty much”

yeah, you're on your own kid. But some of them have really yoke eggs that have a lot of nutrient, and oftentimes the individual that's produced the egg mass, and I won't say mother, because their mother fathers, the individual that laid the egg mass will sort of hang around, but doesn't really provide much protection. And the eggs often have some of the toxic chemicals that protects the adults. So the eggs can be chemically protected as well. So they aren't eaten because they're

really enticing morsels with all that yokey, good nutrients, and protein. So they are not going

to get eaten very readily because they are chemically protected as well. But basically they're on their

own to most typically hatch into a larval stage that will spend any time between a few days in

“the plankton up to six months. Oh, wow. Oh, and some of the branks can spend so long in that baby”

stage that they coast on the surface as plankton long enough to nearly cross an ocean. Does Peter pan in their way across the world? And because new to branks are pretty well protected, once they become juveniles and they start feeding on their adult prey, basically they're immune to predation. So why aren't new to branks taking over the entire world on its because most of that predation takes place when their larval stages in the plankton, where they really don't have

any protection, and probably 90% plus of the individuals that are in the plankton yet consumed. Well, you know, you were saying that eggling parrot, and I imagine you were talking about how nutrient dense those yolks are. So that's got to be expensive to make as opposed to sperm. So how is it decided which of the two individuals are kind of saddled with the burden of making those eggs versus which are just like, hey, got your sperm. I'll see you. Is it when

you lose? Well, both individuals from a mating will produce eggs. Oh, wow, okay. So they exchange sperm with each other. And so then both of them are fertilized and they can store sperm for several months from that mating. And then when the eggs are mature and ready to pass through the reproductive system, then fertilization of that storage sperm will take place and it may be a couple of months. Well, you know, sometimes spaghetti leftovers are better than x day. Yeah. So I get it. That's right.

Yeah, sometimes soup gets better. It's like pizza for breakfast. I have a couple questions for blisters. Is it okay to ask you have a few more minutes? Of course. Yeah. Oh, amazing. Okay. But first, let's scatter some cash into the waters of knowledge. This week, we are going to be donating to the wonderful California Academy of Sciences, which is a research institute and a natural history museum in San Francisco, California. It's among the largest museums of natural history in the

world. They house over 46 million specimens. They also operate the institute for bio diversity

science and sustainability. And if you have never visited definitely put Cal Academy on your bucket list,

There's aquarium. I went and saw a cure laser light show at the planetarium and the day that I got braces. And I was so glad I was a dark in there and also my face hurts so much. Anyway, it's

“beautiful there. Also while you're in San Francisco, there are some secret concrete slides hidden in”

neighborhoods around the city. And you climb up some stairs and then you slide down these concrete

channels on a cardboard box. And it's not it goes so fast. Make sure you have health insurance first,

but you gotta ask around where they are. Okay, either way, that donation went to fund the excellent world-class research at San Francisco's Cal Academy. Thanks to the sponsors of the show. Let's stick our stumping little horns into the mail bag and answer some questions from listeners who submitted via patreon.com/ologies where you two can join for just a scant dollar a month. Well, a few people Amy hanks and Brugatini wanted to know Brugatini asked what are the

little ears for? Are they eye stalks? Like on terrestrial slugs, Amy said, how do they're rhinophores? Help them navigate? What are those little stalks? Yeah, so those are what we would call

“rhinophores. They do not have eyes on them. Their eyes are actually tiny little dots near the base”

of the rhinophores. Very small. Not super functional. So they're rhinophores are generally

their main way of sensing the world. They do have some other structures near their mouths often. But the rhinophores are where they do a lot of what we would call chemo sensations. So they're able to detect chemicals in the water. They're able to detect also movement in the water. So like if there's currents, things like that. And that's their main way of finding food. So they have these chemo receptors on there. The signals go down to what we'd call the rhinophore ganglia

and help them make decisions about, well, I want to go this way because my prey is that way. Their eyes are little at the bottom, though. Yeah, super tiny dots. Just little ones.

But the rhinophores, which look like the bunny ears, are kind of like antenna sensing all kinds

of molecules and motions, which makes sense given that rhinophore means nose bearing. So those are the horn-like rabbit ears. And again, the dorsal finger-looking fringe used for gas exchange and picking up sensory cues, those are surrounded. All of these structures, of course, help them survive in the vulnerable state without a shell. But they have also stolen ammunition. Also heads up, you may hear a jingle. Maybe I'm jostling a tambourine, or maybe it's my dog's collar,

because she doesn't respect my work. Ashley Mars Abbey, grave Jennifer Fro, head of Johnson, Keyline Pie, Sarah Moore come so many people wanted to know in rainous words, are they poisonous because they look like radioactive caterpillars? And would they be considered

“poisonous or venomous? Like, do you have to sort of look at the semantics of that? Are they technically”

venomous if they don't kill anything? Is this so venom? Well, the definition of venomous is not just that they're poisonous, but they have to have a delivery mechanism. So the ones that have the nematastus that can actually fire, they technically meet the definition of being venomous. But all of them are at least distasteful, ranging to some that could probably if a human consumed them, they could actually suffer some serious health consequences and perhaps

even die from that. But you would have to eat a lot of them. Yeah, if you find that many new to bring, they should just apply for a position in your lab because they have a gift. Yeah, that's exactly. What about their brains? What are they working with? Kelly Shafer, Buck and Rugg, wanted to know, bug asked what in the heck of their brains like, and some other folks Graham and adds wanted to know, Kelly also asked, can they be trained? Do they learn what kind of

brain they're working with? So they have something that you might call a brain. It's like a cerebral, pleural ganglion, as what we would call it. There's these two ganglia that may be fused, and then they have pleural ganglia, which are kind of in the middle, then they have pedoganglia, which are towards the foot, and they have rhinophore ganglia, which are for their sensory structures. So they kind of have what I would consider a kind of distributed nervous system, where they do have

some centralization in these ganglia, but largely it's kind of, they've a lot of peripheral nervous action going on. Mentionation. DJ Breider asked if they have sensions, bug and a rug asked if they have feelings, do different individuals exhibit different behaviors or do different species, kind of like breeds of dogs? Yeah, they have a relatively simple nervous system, and they can detect

individuals of their same species and food. And so they've pretty much got those two things on their

minds, most of the time, and probably not a whole lot else. And so everything is really driven by

“feeding and reproduction, they detect light and dark, which is important to some of them are”

not turnally active, and are pretty inactive during the day, so that the light levels are really important. I wouldn't say they have feelings in the way that we have feelings, which has this advantage, says they don't carry around a lot of emotional baggage, which probably is the reason that need to break psychiatrists have indeed evolved. And I envy them right now. Yeah, I mean, it's a lot

simpler existence. And if all we had to worry about is where we're going to get our next meal and

who we're going to mate with, it would be a lot more simple. And you know, a mating is just a way of perpetuating your species. There's not much attachment in terms of forming bonding pairs like

“other species that mate for life and really have that. It's a sort of one-night stand and away”

they go. Well, that was actually on the minds of Anna Wolf Shae and Abby Grimm. Anna Wolf does what courtship rituals do they have? And Shae asks, "What makes one new to break stand out in a sea of suitors?" And Abby wants to know if they shoot love darts like snail stew. They don't have love darts,

but they do have elaborate spines and stuff in their reproductive system. And oftentimes those

spines are associated with a gland that probably produces some secretions. But we don't know enough about the courtship and mating. And we do see that oftentimes they will nibble at each other and crawl around each other. And so there is some sort of courtship and recognition process that goes on before mating actually ensues. So yeah, they enjoy the little artistry imagine as well. Like, that's a beautiful thing. We had some questions about specific species. Okay.

"Pair wanted to know why is glaucus at Lannicus so different and shape? Why did it get these poison sacks?" And then Kieran H said, "Why is the blue glaucus so different and shape compared to most newbies is she just not like the other girls?" So I'm not familiar with the glaucus, but elaborate. Okay. Their gorgeous sort of silvery and bright shiny blue and the reason they have that shape is that they're found in the open ocean. I mean, literally on the surface of open

waters. And because they feed on things like the Portuguese Manohar, a lot of that unusual shape is to help them maintain floatation on the surface of the ocean. They'll swallow an air bubble to give them buoyancy and then they spread out their nematysis that are in the cerata and spread

“out their cerata to help maintain that floatation. So that's why they have such an unusual shape”

because they live in a such a really completely different habitat to most of the species that live on the bottom of tide pools and in shallow waters. How gorgeous? And again, this glaucus type of new to break aka C. Swallow, the blue dragon's lug looks almost like this tiny kind of manta ray shape if it were rimmed in tenicle like ostrich feather projections and had the silvery blue pattern. They do not look real. I mostly wanted to talk to you about new to

breaks for superficial reasons because they're the weirdest looking things out there. Yeah, they're pretty weird. But when it comes to new to breaks, are they all the fanciest sea slugs? Definitely not. Really? So I'd say the most sort of charismatic of the new to breaks are the ones called Dorids. These are the most braily colored ones you often see. They kind of have that standard slug shape like the oval and they have those beautiful gills off of the back

and these Dorid new to breaks. They come in all shapes and colors. They're just stunning. Whoever named them Dorids was mitten as the taxonomy is a nod to a Greek goddess, a sceneimf,

breaks. I think one really good example is Flavolinopsis Ayodinia. Okay. It's a species in California

“that is like bright purple in orange. It's really beautiful and it's commonly found in tide pools.”

So people often see it. But a lot of them are super super tiny of the ones I study. So you can think like on the order of millimeters and they're brown and you know, they still look very cool to me. But maybe not as excited to the rest of the world. We have so many, so many questions, raining heavily asked why do sea slugs look like they are in the most fabulous drag? Well, land slugs look like they're in faded camo. Those are evolutionary adaptations too as warning

colors mostly. Right. Yes. It's basically so many ninja branks have evolved those color patterns

because they are advertising to predators that they're just tasteful. And not all of the land slugs are just tasteful. They are sometimes tasty morsels. But things like banana slugs large yellow and green colored slugs that live in the redwood forests of California and get really quite large. They are just tasteful. And they have toxic mucus that if a dog tries to nibble on a banana slug it has the same response that one of those fish predators of native branks have. Well,

speaking of putting slugs in our mouths, you and I had do have that in common. I'm from the bay area of myself. And so we went on field trips to tide pools. We went to the redwoods and it was definitely a dare to try to kiss a banana slug, which now did I know about like roundworms and stuff. I'm like, that's a whole or a rat lung worm. I don't know if banana slugs have rat lungworm, but definitely don't kiss a slug. It's just a PSA. I should put out there. Now that I remember about that.

Yeah. People love to do that kind of stuff. And most of the times we dodge the bullet and

“don't have any adverse consequences for that. That's how humans and particularly indigenous people”

have learned through those experiences, you know, what's food and what's not food. It's all part of that natural curiosity in trying different things and sometimes there's some adverse

consequences. Never, ever, ever, ever eat or lick a raw slug. I hate that I have to tell you that.

But maybe I do. Rat lungworm is as gross as it sounds. You get it by eating raw snails or slugs who have eaten rat feces. And in some cases, it can cause meningitis that kills you. So as hard as it is to resist, I get it. Don't chew on a garden slug. Maybe wash your backyard fruit. I have you ever encountered anything anthropologically or from a historical perspective about

“indigenous reactions or lore or folklore with new to breaks? Is that even well studied?”

Yeah, it is. But yeah, I can only give you like two or three examples that I know of. And basically there are some new to breaks that are eaten. There's some that are found in the islands off of

Russia that are eaten by indigenous people. And but basically they know where the distasteful parts

are and they basically chop those off and then the rest is pretty edible. In the Cook Island, there's a species of sea hair that is actually pretty toxic because it feeds on algae that has a lot of toxins. And so the indigenous people there know what organs to remove and then eat the remaining part of the animal after they they remove the areas where the distasteful and toxic substances are stored. So there's a lot of indigenous knowledge about that that really

reflects, I'm pretty profound understanding of their biology. What about, you know, speaking of reflecting and color, and it for a jelly-tot actually tweet in the early of grandma can, Jordan and Chloe Kashnik for something I should ask her. Wanted to know, are there any UV reactive duty breaks to any glow? Yes. There are some that if you shine a black light on them, there is UV reflectance that's certainly beyond our normal spectrum and probably reflects

no pun intended. Living in the in darker waters where there's not so much light penetration from the visible light spectrum. And so some deep sea fish is probably can see reflectance in the

get to see those? Often do you have to swim around with a black light? I've done that on certain

“night dives and yeah, it's really surprising what you see and you try something and it's close relative,”

the one species has no reflectance and the other does. And so that's another puzzle. Why is that the case? And so still so much to figure out and discover. So while fluorescing under certain wavelengths, like ultraviolet light is simply iconic and it's stunning. It is distinct from the inner glow of the bioluminescent. I am Denoel, Maddie Julian and at want to know in Maddie Julian's words. Do we know of any species that have bioluminescence? Are there any glowing ones? Yes, definitely.

This is something I'm trying to get into, actually, the bioluminescent questions. So there are actually a few possible origins of bioluminescence in Nudobranks. There's one group called Phylloroli. These are super cool Nudobranks. They're hopefully pelagic. And I highly recommend everyone look them up because if you look at them, they just kind of look like translucent fish. Okay, Nudobrank that looks like a swimming cloud rimmed with fairy lights. No one asked you

to look that good yet here we are. They swim with these undulations. They kind of make them look like fish. They're bioluminescent. There's also another group called Polyseries that there's some bioluminescent taxa. And then there's one newly described species that they have these bioluminescent structures that they can actually automatize or release. And it's a hypothesis to be a form of

“defense. So just sort of like throwing glitter and then running? Yeah, that's kind of the idea, I think.”

Just a glitter cloud. Like, look at that. Bye. What about the hardest thing about working on these little critters? The hardest thing. I think the hardest thing, but the thing that's also the most fun is that they're actually quite hard to find sometimes, right? Like, I think that

aspect of it can be very challenging, but I always love diced by and where as well, though, as a kid.

And so I think it's so, it feels like a challenge to me, which I really enjoy. Yeah, I would say that's probably one of the main things. I'm so sorry that I've kept you so long, too. But you're just, you happen to be fascinating and so fun to talk to. So sorry. Oh, thanks. Last questions I

“was asked are the hardest and the best things about the job. I imagine conservation has”

got to be the biggest challenge. Is there anything that when it comes to conservation, you wish people new more about or you wish that they're more action? Well, actually, you know, I feel pretty upbeat about conservation. And particularly in places around the world where I work, I hand especially in the Philippines, we work very closely with local communities and share the information that we have not just about new to branks, but about how all ecosystems are doing.

And we've established some marine protected areas and made recommendations based on new to branks diversity and and work very closely with those communities where they become the sort of bottom-up supporters of establishing new marine protected areas because their livelihood depends on it. Because of ecotourism and diving and there are some of the biggest and strongest advocates for marine protected areas. And so a lot of the reefs where I've been diving in the Philippines for

30 years plus some of those reefs are in better shape today than they were when I first went

there and there was blast fishing using dynamite. That's pretty much been eliminated in most of the places I work. And so there's a growing understanding and actually in remote parts of the world there is more opportunity and receptivity to education than there is in the states where, you know, we have so much polarization about the topics of climate change and conservation that in my experience I don't find as much resistance to scientific fact is what scientists know

and how it is generally accepted by local communities versus some of the resistance we see currently in our own society. And so I'm tremendously able to be optimistic about the future

and building those bridges to not only unearth new knowledge but share that knowledge and

“build an understanding of why that knowledge is useful to local people.”

That being said, is there something about the work that vexes you the most? Is there a petty inconvenience about studying new ranks that we should know about? Well, you know, the real world

always gets in the way of your ambitions and finding funding, asking people for support, spending

a lot of time doing that and particularly in this anti-science climate world that we live in today, it becomes that much more challenging. So I would say I don't mind spending time to make the case for the value of what we do but I think not enough scientists devote energy to explaining what they do and why it is actually relevant and important to other people's lives and the more we do that, the better people will understand and support science. So that is not only of responsibility

but it's a way of making sure that future studies can take place and we can continue to solve some of the mysteries that still remain out there. What about your favorite thing about your job or about new to ranks? The thing I like most about new to ranks is there's too many options to pick up. I think it sort of comes along with the scuba diving. I love the idea that there's all of these

“hidden aspects of the ocean or the world that all you have to do is look hard enough to see them”

and there's so much you can see that so many people have never seen and I just love the idea of that.

That said, my goal is to try and help people see it so that's something I also enjoy and if you can't make it to a notion, perhaps look on the form of someone sitting next to you on the bus. You can just grow one or to know if you have a new to bring tattoo. I don't but I thought about it and part of the reason I don't have one is that it's kind of the same problem with people asking me like what's my favorite new to rank? Because it's like you know it's like having kids. I feel like I can't pick

one favorite if I did it and I put it on my body I'd kind of go but I wish I'd done that other one or why didn't I get both then I'd end up with like tattoos everywhere I guess which it's not a bad thing

but take a lot of money. You could always do them life size. Yeah true very tiny, tiny new to

ranks yeah. Let's get a lot of them. Maybe a big sea hair or a thigh sea hair. We all have a little more you know real estate or. Yeah yeah. I can tell you a full back tattoo. Jessica would want to know if it's silly of them to get one as a tattoo. Absolutely not. No I love new to rank tattoos. It's really fun when people show me them as long as they're in places that are appropriate for me to see. Well, upping the stakes a little bit more. Libby Tomco says I'm adding a new to bring to my ocean

sleeve which one should I add. I would tell literally every single person in the world that a scientist picked out my tattoo. Oh god. I can't even pick one for myself. Well you have more pressure

“because you you're a new to rank person. Yeah it's true. I mean I think glaucus is usually a good one.”

Those are very pretty and they have a cool pattern and a cool shape that's different from a lot of other new to ranks and I seem to be very distinctive. So I feel like that would make a really good tattoo. Any particular species? Um they look pretty similar but glaucus is Atlanticus. I think is a really good one. Yeah. Like anything behaviorally that you want to add about them. Yeah so there's a recent paper that looked at a glaucus species that showed that they're able to

use their stinging structures not just for defense like other new to ranks do but they seem to maybe use them to capture prey as well. So the way that their shape is kind of flat and they look like they have wings but what most people don't realize is they're upside down so their mouths are actually on the top of their color like where their color patterns are that's where their mouths are. So what happens is they're kind of floating upside down and they kind of grab on to their prey

and that that seems to be how they they feed to some extent and they can capture fish that way when other types of animals it's pretty cool. But it's so jujitsu. It's so like it's very

Yeah that is in essence what it looks like is it's just like a big hug. All right Libby and Jessica would not silly if you to get one Jessica and Libby there's your assignment

“go forth. Get it. Yeah tag me on blue sky when you get it. Yeah. What is your blue sky handle?”

We'll shout it out right now. Yeah it's mollusks at AM and H. Love. Yeah. So tag Dr. Goodheart in that. And if for some reason you don't want that tattoo maybe go for Terry's pick. Do you have a favorite new to rank? Oh. I know this must be asked if you all the time but come on. That's yeah okay. So I have two answers to that and one is yes I do but it changes weekly which is pretty much the case. But certainly the first new species that I found in the tide pools in California when I was

still in high school you know has a special place in my heart because my colleague Gary Williams who was a high school student with me and we found it in a senior year of high school and we

“named it after that high school mentor Gordon Chan who first took us out to the tide pools and”

really was the person who helped turn on that light and get us on a path towards becoming scientists

rather than just curious people. Oh wow that's amazing. So the Halaksev Chan I aka Chan's

Dorid is this beautiful 25 or 30 millimeter or so about one inch long little lemon yellow sweetie with nubby maroon rhino four rabbit ears and a golden crown of bronchial plumage on its little romp it's speckled with ruddy brown freckles it's got some elegant beige beauty marks and yes we are talking to one of the guys who discovered it six decades ago and here we are all the way in the future hearing tales of oceanic adventures and being inspired to keep our eyes open.

“But being a curious person is the first important step and so to all of the people that are”

listening you are all scientists you are making observations every time you go out in nature and scientists need you to make those observations because there aren't enough of us and so one of the things that we're doing in this spring is we're going to have people going out to California tide pools and document some of the species and post pictures on eye naturalists which is a great platform to record the natural world and basically we really welcome everybody to

participate in that process and it's a really simple one to become involved and I would encourage everybody to do that and to make observations of what you find in your backyard when you go outside you don't have to be in a rural or relatively pristine habitat cities have vital habitats that

have amazing endangered nature that is worthy of your documenting what happens literally on the

street corner or school yard where you live or work oh my gosh you're going to make me cry that's so inspiring and such exactly exactly what we all need to hear and this starts in May the starts next month so we will link the Cal Academy's Community Science page for the 2026 Sea Slug Search or you can download the fantastic app i naturalist and just look for the sea slug search for more info on how an afternoon excursion to a nudie beach can make Terry

the happiest sea slug researcher on planet earth now they're looking for California coastal observations but no matter where on the planet you are if you're near the ocean you can search for nudibranx or if you're not near ocean search for any plant or creatures and post them on a

naturalist it fills the hearts of scientists you'll never meet and you can do it independently you

don't have to be part of that formal going out to the tide pools you can do it anytime any place anywhere around where the water tastes salty oh that's great this has been an absolute treasure of a condo thank you so much you're most welcome thanks for inviting me allie i appreciate it so yes ask marine people well meaning questions because honestly what a wealth of beauty and fun

for taking the time to be on allogies for all the work you do for the voiceless and the tender

“creatures on this earth we'll have tons more links on our website at allieward.com/allogies/nudibrancology”

and more links to Jessica and Terry right in the show notes we are at allogies on blue sky and Instagram where we will be posting nudibranx pictures and I'm at allieward on both as well and we have those shorter kid friendly episodes called smallogies wherever you get podcasts or at the link in the show notes you can also head to allieward.com/smallogies for those please tell your friends with kids we also have merch at allogiesmerch.com and thank you again to patrons who have joined

up for a dollar or more a month to support the show. Aaron Talbert admins the allogies podcast Facebook group Adeline Malik makes our professional transcripts. Kelly R. Dwyer does the website keeping her rhinophores on the pulse is scheduling producer Noel Dilworth the stomach bubble that keeps us afloat is managing director Susan Hale and highly evolved and dazzling editors are jig-chaffee and lead editor Mercedes-Metland of Maitland audio also I just realized that Aaron

Talbert I've known her since we were four we went tide pulling together and third grade for a

“class trip. I'll never forget it a Nick Thorburn fluttered out the theme music if you stick around”

to the very end you know I may tell you secret this week is that I tend to drink a lot of green tea I love green tea I just take a plane I've been drinking it every day for decades and I like it like really weak and watered down or iced and you're like what's the point my point was I was like a protest as hot in LA right I brought a now gene for hydration and naturally I filled it with weak green tea iced tea and as I walked along the ice melted just in general green

“tea gets a little foamy but here's the thing there were no bathrooms along the route and”

toward the end someone asked me if my green tea was urine in my now gene and that made it harder to stay hydrated because that's a visual that doesn't leave you quickly also if one person asked me

that how many other people thought it I'm never going to know either way keep your eyes open for

beautiful creatures out there especially in front of the mirror uh oh bye pack a German college mommy allergy it does you allergy little allergy new technology meteorology you're a slug me a slug