The other day I was rifling through a drawer in search of a notebook — I have a filing system best described as “post-tornado” — when my hand touched an old external hard-drive. I plugged it into a USB port, and years of photos, many of which I’d assumed were lost forever, bloomed on my laptop. A couple of albums captured scuba-diving trips Elise and I took in the Before Times, back when the greatest risk of foreign travel was flygskam. We spent most of those dives hunting for nudibranchs, flamboyant sea slugs that hide among coral crevices like Easter eggs. Although we have been privileged to see many extraordinary things underwater — dolphin pods, mantis shrimp, turtles the size of coffee tables — nothing quite thrills me like finding one of these tiny gems, exposed gills waving kelpishly in the current. Their preposterous beauty and gentle panache have always sparked wonder in me; perhaps these unearthed pictures will do the same for you.
And a few lines of invertebrate-inspired doggerel to go with them:
The nudi is a critter odd
Plump of body, bright of hue
A festive little gastropod
Of coral reefs and ocean blue.
The nudi is a critter bawdy
Of oral tentacles, naked gills
Mollusks seldom come so gaudy
This is a slug bedecked in frills.
The nudi makes me reminisce
For though I’m healthy—can’t complain—
There’s so much world that I have missed
Would I could see one again.
Because language amuses me, I’ve read that the term “nudibranch” comes from Greek and Latin words meaning “naked gills.” Seems like a cute name for a colorful squishy creature who has horns!
Indeed, those little frilly things on their backs are their gills! Yes, it’s quite the adorable (and anatomically apt) name.