Strangely adorable video of sea slugs eating a blue button jelly alive

Yesterday, I posted a photo of Glaucus atlanticus — a strange little creature, related to mollusks, which floats through the ocean and eats (among other things) the jellyfish-like Portuguese Man-Of-War.

In response, marine biologist Christopher Mah sent over this video, in which two specimens of Glaucilla marginata — a smaller relative of Glaucus atlanticus — nibble on the still-living flesh of a colonial organism called a blue button. This proves to be cuter than it sounds.

Part of what makes the video so mesmerizing is watching the Glaucilla marginata move around. These creatures travel in a very laid-back way. Inflating a gas bubble in their stomachs, they float around on their backs, wherever the waves will take them. That bubble seems to lead to some endearing, baby-sloth-like flips and turns as they try to position themselves to take bites out of the blue button. OM NOM NOM.

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

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MORE: cute • Delightful Creatures • horrors • OM NOM NOM • Science

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surreality

Are there two of them kissing around 0:57? That’s what it is in my brain.
- Ashen Victor
  
  It looks like CPR to me.
tyrell

They’re not related to mollusks. They are mollusks.
Rezorrand

Did the jelly, in return, eat any of the slugs? It seemed to try at least.
- Charlie B
  
  I hope so. I was kind of rooting for the adorable blue button.
http://profile.yahoo.com/652N5PON56KNCCZZC46S2F3PEQ Madama

I knew it, Polkemons are real.
http://halfbakedmaker.org Robert Baruch

Maggie, your cat videos similarly suck. That is an awful-looking cat.
Rich Keller

That was pleasantly disturbing. Thanks! Nudibranchs make me wish I were a marine biologist and a hot glass sculptor.

Yesterday, I was wondering how the little nudibranchs get the toxin to where they can put it to good use. Are they using the original nematocysts from their food source somehow as a delivery system or do they have some kind of things of their own?
http://www.facebook.com/people/Christopher-D-Horn/680812804 Christopher D. Horn

Spongebob is horrified!!
Nicky G

I’m almost positive those things were in an episode of Aeon Flux.

This was them as an adult, as babies they looked just like what’s in this video.

http://www.knyght.net/comics/aeonflux/alien-ae.jpg
David J. Weiner

awwww, such adorable vicious predators, feeding on a hapless blue button.