Blog Log: Slugs, Snails & Seastars

September 2, 2012

Photo: Jimmy Goh/The Hantu Blog

Blessed with good visibility and practically zero current, we took the opportunity to slow down and appreciate the little things in life.

Photo: Jimmy Goh/The Hantu Blog

If you’ve visited a local seafood restaurant, it’s very likely you’ve met a conch. But if you ever observed a living conch, it’s quite unlikely you’d want to eat it! Unlike regular snails, these creatures do not creep along the substrate, but instead move along in jerks with the help of a large “foot”. As you can see from this picture, they have eyes that look just like ours! Isn’t it bizarre? While most snail eyes generally only detect light, it is believed that the eyes of the conch snail may actually produce an image!

Photo: Jimmy Goh/The Hantu Blog

There were plenty of sea slugs on the reef. Unlike the conch, these slugs don’t have eyes at the end of eye stalks. In some species however, it may be possible to spot an eye-spot at the base of its antennae.

Photo: Jimmy Goh/The Hantu Blog

This is not a nudibranch. It is in fact, a flatworm that is trying to mimic a kind of nudibranch known as the Black-margined glossodoris that can also be found in local waters. The flatworm might benefit from looking at like the Black-margined glossodoris, as the nudibranch absorbs the toxic chemicals in the sponges that it feeds on and deposits these chemicals into the mantle glands on their backs which acts to repel predators.