If You Ever See This Tiny ‘Sea Dragon’, Don’t Even Think About Getting Close To It. After mating, the two partners will separate and lay their eggs. They eat all sorts of other floating oddities such as the Violet Sea Snail, the Blue Button and the By-the-wind Sailor. But what they lack in size, they make up for in ferocity and beauty.
They are blue on their backs to help them blend in with the reflective surface of the ocean. Maximum size: 35 mm. Its cerata extend laterally from three distinct pairs of lobes. Life Cycle: The Blue Glaucus finds a mate similar to how it finds its prey. Identification: This broad, flattened aeolid is midnight blue on the ventral surface (facing upward in the photo) and silvery blue on the dorsal surface. Glaucus Atlanticus are up to 3 cm long and weigh between 3-100 grams ; Their heads are blunt with tentacles near the mouth. Their diet consists of: - Physalia Physalis (Portuguese Man-O’-War) - Porpita Porpita (Blue Button) - Janthina Janthina (Violet Snail) - Velella Velella (By-The-Wind Sailors) They prefer the Portuguese Man-O’-War, a jellyfish well-known for it's venomous tentacles. Though they look like the left-behind offspring of some alien creatures, these bizarre creatures are 100% Earth-bred. FACTS. Does anyone know what, if any, predators this has?
An abalone is one. In contrast to Glaucus marginatus, the cerata are arranged in a single, flat row along the edge of each lobe. paulhypnos Video also includes the Blue Button. It will just float in the current until it finds one. Like all nudibranch, it lays eggs and is a hermaphrodite, meaning it has both reproductive parts. The eggs are on strings, and each string will have 12 to 20 eggs on it.
Special attention, however, is given to the mighty Portuguese Man o' War.
This is the blue dragon sea slug, also known as Glaucus atlanticus. Glaucus atlanticus isn’t the bottom-feeding sea slug people are used to seeing. > When most people think of slugs, they probably think of the ugly yellow and green blobs that plague their gardening patch. Glaucus Atlanticus eat mainly hydrozoans, a class of jellyfish, but are also known to be cannibalistic if food is scarce. It is widely known for it looking more like an animal in a sci-fi movie or video-game. The slug then stores the venom in its body for later use, while making it even more deadly. Its a fancy word for a water slug/snail, such as the glaucus atlanticus
Blue dragons are part of the nudibranch family, a group of soft-body mollusks more commonly known as sea slugs. I'm researching the Glaucus atlanticus, also known as the blue glaucus, among various other names, but after reading quite a few articles and searching on the Internet as many different ways as I can think of, I can't find any of its predators, or any indication it has no natural predators.Everything I've read is just silent on the issue. The slugs are silvery grey on their bellies to help them blend in with the surface when observed from below. They use a gas sac in their stomachs to float upside-down in warm ocean currents, snagging other small venomous jellyfish with their tiny blue feet. Living Things » Cellular Organisms » Eukaryotes » Opisthokonts » Animals » Bilateria » Protostomes » Spiralians » Molluscs » Snails And Slugs » Nudibranchia » Aeolidioidea » Glaucidae » Glaucus « Glaucus atlanticus Forster, 1777 . The Blue Glaucus is immune to the Man o’ War’s venom, and will eat the entire structure of organisms, including the ones that sting.