Say hello to this week’s Internet overlord, the fluffy-looking “sea bunny.”
The animal isn’t actually a tiny ocean-dwelling rabbit. The creature eliciting “awwws” around the world is a type of sea slug called Jorunna parva.
Most are less than an inch (2.5 centimeters) long and can be found throughout the Indo-Pacific Ocean from South Africa to the central Pacific. Though the most popular images of these animals show white animals with black spots, these sea slugs are usually yellow or orange.
Jorunna parva‘s fur-like coat is due to bunches of tiny rods, called caryophyllidia, that cover the animal’s back. They’re arranged around little knobs that are sometimes black, giving the sea bunny its speckled appearance.
“We don’t know for sure what these organs do,” says Ángel Valdés, a sea slug expert at California State Polytechnic University in Pomona. But “they probably play sensory roles.”
for more..See: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/07/150723-sea-slug-nudibranch-sea-bunny-ocean-animals-science/
