A rare multicolored sea slug named Babakina anadoni was found by a diver off the coast of Scilly Isles, Cornwall Islands in southwest England.
Cornwall Wildlife Trust volunteer Allen Murray found the sea slug while participating in National Marine Week. He found it while diving near Mellinggan, an uninhabited rocky island in the Cornwall archipelago.
Sea slug Babakina anadoni. (Photo: Mail)
The sea slug was discovered to be only 2cm long, less than half the size of a little finger, and had a structure that looked like it was covered with a layer of jade feathers. The very soft outer feathers, colored purple, yellow and orange, contain the animal’s intestines and can also help them warn off predators.
This animal was first described in 1979, initially placed in the genus Rioselleolis, but later reclassified in the genus Babakina. Their food is mainly small creatures related to corals and jellyfish.
Their food is mainly small creatures related to corals and jellyfish. (Photo: Mail)
Babakina is only found a few times in warm ocean waters around the west coast of Spain and further south in the Atlantic Ocean. It is possible that their appearance in a new area is due to climate change or recent increases in temperature.
Sharing with Mail , Murray said that at first he did not realize that this was a rare creature: “I just knew that I had never seen this animal before. When I asked the people on the boat, no one recognized it.”
However, after one of Murray’s group recalled seeing images of a similar animal on Facebook, they continued to look up and determined the identity of the newly found animal to be Babakina anadoni . Murray’s photo of a multi-colored sea slug is confirmation of the animal’s first appearance in the UK.
