new species of sea slug dropped!!!! well not really it’s been documented since 2004 but only recently MBARI found out they can bioluminesce
one of THREE species of nudibranchs that do that and they all evolved separately
the species is Bathydevius caudactylus (midnight zone nudibranch) the ONLY nudibranch to have been documented in the bathypelagic zone 1000-4000m under the sea
it uses a gigantic .. hood…?? thingy..?? to capture prey and it’s morphologically a lot like shrimp but they’re not related
it has fingerlike projections on its mantle and tail that DETACHES as a decoy to escape predators (a lot of nudibranchs do that, i.e. phyllodesmium magnum)
it’s apparently a distant outgroup in the nudibranch class so it diverged before all the other species did
