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Hooded Nudibranchs and their eggs

*Hooded Nudibranchs – oral hood open ©Jackie Hildering*

[Last updated on January 2, 2022]

The remarkable-looking animals to the right are Hooded Nudibranchs (Melibe leonina up to 17.5 cm). A nudibranch is subgrouping of sea slugs whose characteristics include having naked (“nudi”) gills (“branchs”).

Typically, starting in the fall, around northeast Vancouver Island, Hooded Nudibranchs come together in the hundreds. It is awe-inspiring to see them clustered together just below the surface, delicate and ghost-like, clinging to kelp. Most are translucent white but some individuals are more green or orange.

Often, you can see them swimming on the surface and many people mistake them for jellyfish. But no, they are sea slugs.

The large oral hood (disc-like head) is used to feed on plankton and small crustaceans. The lobed structures on the animals’ backs are the naked gills (cerata). The cerata can pop off if the Hooded Nudibranch is threatened e.g. pinched by a crab. This “ceretal autonomy” and the ability to swim, are believed to be distractors for predator (Bickell-Page, 1989).

The two structures on the Hooded Nudibranch’s oral hood are their rhinophores by which they smell their way around. Hooded Nudibranchs are believed to signal one another by emitting a fruity scent. My personal experience after having picked up a dead Hooded Nudibranch on the beach, is that the smell is something like a mix of watermelon and grapefruit. The scent stayed on my hand for more than an hour.

Hooded nudibranch swimming. ©Jackie Hildering — *Hooded nudibranch swimming* *©Jackie Hildering*.

The secretion is reported to serve as a repellent for predators but does not deter Northern Kelp Crabs.

After mating, as is the way with sea slugs, both individuals lay eggs and then, they die. You can find additional information about sea slugs being reciprocal hermaphrodites in this past blog posting.

Hooded Nudibranch eggs. ©Jackie Hildering — *Hooded Nudibranch egg ribbons. ©Jackie Hildering*

In the area around northeast Vancouver Island, I have observed that they lay their egg masses between January and April. Each ribbon of eggs is only about one centimetre wide. Every dot is an egg capsule containing 15 to 25 eggs. After about 10 days, depending on temperature, the eggs will hatch into larvae that will be part of the zooplankton soup of the Ocean.

After 1 to 2 months, they settle to the ocean bottom and change body shape and even digestive tract to become small adult Hooded Nudibranchs

Hooded Nudibranchs do not have the rasping mouth structure of many other sea slugs (the radula). They feed by opening their oral hood to capture prey while standing on kelp or Eelgrass.

*Hooded Nudibranch on Eelgrass and yes, those little snails are part of their diet.*

From Invertebrates of the Salish Sea: ” . . . diet includes copepods, amphipods, and ostracods, as well as small post-larval mollusks. The animal stands attached to the substrate and expands the oral hood. It then sweeps the hood left and right or downward. When the ventral surface of the hood contacts a small animal the hood rapidly closes and the fringing tentacles overlap, holding the prey in. The whole animal is then forced into the nudibranch’s mouth.”

*Hooded Nudibranchs on Giant Kelp. ©Jackie Hildering, 2022*

For more information:

Biodiversity of the Central Coast: Hooded Nudibranch

Deep Sea News: “This sea slug is like a cross between a dinosaur, a jellyfish, and a watermelon”

Lawrence, K. A. and Winsor H Watson. “Earth , Oceans , and Space ( EOS ) 10-1-2002 Swimming Behavior of the Nudibranch Melibe leonina.” (2017).

Newcomb, James M., et al. “Homology and Homoplasy of Swimming Behaviors and Neural Circuits in the Nudipleura (Mollusca, Gastropoda, Opisthobranchia).” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 109, National Academy of Sciences, 2012, pp. 10669–76, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41601654.

*100s of Hooded Nudibranchs just below the surface in Telegraph Cove ©Jackie Hildering.*

*Dive buddy Jacqui Engel with Hooded Nudibranch ©Jackie Hildering.*

Sea Slug Easter Eggs For You!

Giant nudibranch’s eggs laid at the base of its food, the tube-dwelling anemone. Each dot is an egg. © Jackie Hildering

To follow up on last week’s posting about the feeding of giant nudibranchs, “Who’s eating who”, I now share images of the giant nudibranch swimming and of its egg-laying behaviour.

I know that these are the strangest eggs you will see this Easter!

The story of how the eggs come to be is pretty unique too.

There are no girl or boy sea slugs. They are both male and female; they are hermaphrodites. This means that when sea slugs mate, both animals “get pregnant” and lay eggs.

Sea slugs need this adaptation because it is really difficult for them to find another of their kind. They are relatively slow moving animals that depend on feel and smell to get around.

They don’t search around aimlessly for a mate though. That would be a waste of energy. The chances of finding a member of their own kind are greater near their favourite food. To make this clearer, imagine that you were someone who really loved eating pizza and you wanted to find someone else who loved pizza. The best place to find them would be at . . . a pizza parlour!

For the giant nudibranch, you know from last week’s posting that they love to eat tube-dwelling anemones so they are likelier to meet a mate around this prey. They also may give off chemical signals (pheromones) to announce that they are in the area and “looking for love”.

Compared to faster animals that can see though, the chances of sea slugs finding one another are much smaller. So when they do meet, it is important that they really make it count and have as many babies as possible especially since the eggs will hatch into plankton. This means that many baby sea slugs will become dinner for filter feeders like anemones and barnacles.

How to have as many babies as possible? Both should lay eggs! This is why they are hermaphrodites; not just a male or female. The sea slugs line up right side to right side and exchange cells so that they can both lay eggs.

I will share much more about the love life of sea slugs in future postings. Every sea slug species lays eggs that look very different. One of the “cases” I have worked on the longest is to figure out what each species’ eggs look like. A great clue in trying to figure this out is that sea slugs most often lay eggs on their food.

You can imagine my delight when I found a big mass of eggs at the base of a tube-dwelling anemone! Knowing that the giant nudibranch preys on this species, the chances were very, very good that these were its eggs.

When you follow the link, you can see a larger picture of the eggs mass and get an idea of just how many eggs are in this string (each dot is an egg).

I have also included video of the giant nudibranch swimming for your Easter weekend pleasure. You’ll see that the nudibranch swims upwards but, when it wants to go down, it just stops moving and gently drifts back down to the ocean bottom. You’ll also see that I am pointing my dive light at the animal and how this makes colours look different underwater.

Who’s Eating Who?

Giant Nudibranch (Dendronotus iris) on the prowl for tube-dwelling anemones. This species of nudibranch has great variation in colour. © Jackie Hildering

Giant Nudibranch on the prowl for Tube-Dwelling Anemones. This species of nudibranch has great variation in colour. See photos at end of blog. ©Jackie Hildering

This “case” features the Giant Nudibranch (Dendronotus iris to 30 cm long) and the Tube-Dwelling Anemone (Pachycerianthus fimbriatus).

The Giant Nudibranch’s favourite snack is this anemone species. It is not impacted by the anemone’s stinging cells (nematocysts).

Giant nudibranch launching into a tube-dwelling anemone. © Jackie Hildering

The Tube-Dwelling Anemone is therefore adapted to be able to withdraw into its tube (which can be up to 1 m long) in an attempt to get away from the predator sea slug.

And the battle is on! The Giant Nudibranch patrols the sandy ocean plains “looking” for the Tube-Dwelling Anemone. When it finds one, it rears up and pounces, mouth parts extended in the hopes of grabbing onto the anemone. When the anemone senses the nudibranch’s attack, it withdraws into its tube.

Wait till you see what happens to the Giant Nudibranch!

See below for a short clip of such an attack.

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But that’s not all, this nudibranch species also swims.

By lifting off, it may land somewhere with better chances for feeding and mating. See video below.

As is also generally the way with sea slugs, they also lay their eggs on their prey.

And oh the diversity in colour among Giant Nudibranchs. See photos below.

And here are a few more pouching on their prey.

Interspecies interaction: When this Giant Nudibranch touched the Leather Star, it touched it again and then recoiling with an acute change in direction. The diet of Leather Stars (Dermasterias imbricata) is omnivorous. From Neil McDaniel: “Eats a wide variety of prey, depending on the locale. On the open coast it consumes plumose anemones and tunicates; in sheltered areas it eats orange sea pens, sea vase tunicates, encrusting sponges and bryozoans.” So, Leather Stars are not likely to eat a Giant Nudibranch, especially because Leather Stars are not particularly fast sea stars (15 cm/min) and Giant Nudibranchs can swim away (yes, that’s right they swim). Leather Stars’ skin is known to contain a unique chemical “imbricatine” that does elicit an escape response form Swimming Anemones so . . . whether the Leather Star felt or “tasted” odd to the Giant Anemone, it did “decide” that distancing was the better way to go.

Note: Dendonotids are not known to utilize the stinging cells (nematocysts) of their prey. From the Sea Slug Forum “There has been some confusion in the literature concerning the presence of branches of the gut in the ‘gills’ or ‘cerata’ of species of Dendronotus. Firstly there is no evidence to suggest that any species of Dendronotus has cnidosacs at the tip of its dorsal processes in which to store nematocysts. In fact there is no evidence that they store nematocysts from their prey anemones in any part of their body.“