Word: nudibranch
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Take, Thomas suggests, the case of the nudibranch (a sea slug) and the medusa (a jellyfish) that live in the Bay of Naples. The slug lives with a tiny fragment of the medusa permanently and parasitically attached near its mouth. The vestigial jellyfish apparently is still able to reproduce; its offspring swim off and become normal adult jellyfish. The slug also produces larvae, but these are rather quickly trapped and subsumed by the new jellyfish. Aha, one would think, the jellyfish are getting back at the slugs for prior mutilations. No such thing. "Soon the snails," Thomas writes, "undigested...
...that the nudibranch chromodoris has no known enemies despite size, bright coloration, and lack of shell or protection [July 6]. Sir, have you ever eaten a nudibranch chromodoris...
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