Top Ten Most Beautiful Mollusks
Mollusks (or molluscs) are invertebrates from the phyllum Mollusca. Mollusks are very diverse in sizes, shapes, behaviour, and habitat. The phyllum Mollusca consists to 9 or 10 classes, 2 are extinctMollusks are interesting animals. Some mollusks look magneficent, and here are some of them
Glaucus atlanticus (commonly known as the blue dragon, among other names) is a rare species of sea slug found throughout the world's oceans.
The famous blue dragon sea slug looks like something that would come from the Pokémon world, right? It's very beautiful, but be careful because it can sting. It feeds on Portuguese man o' wars and absorbs its prey's venom, so its sting is similar to a Portuguese man o' war's.
Wow, it eats man o' wars and absorbs their venom? That's bad ass! And it's a beautiful, brilliant blue!
The Spanish shawl (Flabellina iodinea) is a species of aeolid nudibranch (sea slug) native to the west coast of North America.
It has stunningly beautiful colors: a purple body, orange cerata (the long structures coming out of the back), scarlet rhinophores, and orange gills. The stunning colors of this sea slug are actually a warning to predators, telling them that it's venomous or distasteful.
The firefly squid (Watasenia scintillans) is a small species of squid found in Japan.
It has one of the most beautiful abilities an organism could have: bioluminescence. It mostly stays in the deep parts of the sea during the day, but it comes out to the surface at night to hunt, and its bioluminescence makes the sea "glow."
Eastern emerald elysia (Elysia chlorotica) is a species of sea slug found on the east coast of the United States.
It's light green and looks very similar to a leaf. It's one of the sea slugs that have the ability to photosynthesize, an ability usually only plants possess. How does it do it? It gets chlorophyll, which is essential for photosynthesis, from the algae it feeds on. That's also how it got its light green color, which is used for camouflage.
The blue-ringed octopus (Hapalochlaena) is an octopus living in tide pools and coral reefs in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, from Japan to Australia.
When calm, it looks like an ordinary octopus, but when it feels threatened, blue rings will appear on its body. It's beautiful when it does that, but it's actually a warning because this octopus is one of the most venomous marine animals.
Pfeffer's flamboyant cuttlefish (Metasepia pfefferi) is a species of cuttlefish found in tropical Indo-Pacific waters.
It's an unusually colorful cuttlefish and is beautiful, but the colors are actually a warning. The flesh contains some kind of acid, which makes it inedible.
The mimic octopus (Thaumoctopus mimicus) is a small species of octopus found in Indo-Pacific waters.
The normal color of this octopus is light brown or beige, but when threatened, it changes its color to white and brown stripes. Not only is it beautiful, it's unique too. Its mimicry ability is really advanced: it can even mimic other animals.
The flamingo tongue snail (Cyphoma gibbosum) is a small species of sea snail found in the tropical waters of the western Atlantic Ocean.
Its "shell" is bright orange-yellow with black markings, but I put quotation marks on the word "shell" for a reason. It's not really the shell that's colorful. It's the live mantle tissue that covers the shell. The tissue can be retracted to expose the shell.
Also known as the painted snail, the Cuban land snail (Polymita picta) is a large species of land snail endemic to Cuba.
The shell of this snail is shiny and brightly colored, with lots of color varieties. Because of its beauty, this snail is often used for jewelry and trinkets, making it endangered.
Also known as the violet sea snail, the common violet snail (Janthina janthina) is a species of sea snail found worldwide in warm tropical waters.
The shell has a light purple shade on the spire and darker purple on the ventral side. It has a bubble raft, a feature that allows it to float on the surface.