I was thinking a bit about our blog name today, and remember being asked about which type of Sea Slugs we are. I replied that the title did not reference the colorful sea slugs of the suborder Nudibranchia, but rather the sea cucumbers known as “namako.”
Sea cucumbers have also inspired thousands of haiku in Japan, where they are called “namako” (ナマコ), written with characters that can be translated “sea mice”. In English translations of these haiku, they are usually called “sea slugs.”
So anyway, I was verifying this information on wikipedia today, and came upon this delightful tidbit about the wonderous life of namako:
Sea cucumbers extract oxygen from water in a pair of ‘lungs’ or respiratory ‘trees’ that branch off the cloaca just inside the anus, so that they ‘breathe’ by drawing water in through the anus and then expelling it. A variety of fishes, most commonly pearl fishes, have evolved a commensalistic symbiotic relationship with sea cucumbers in which the pearl fish will live in sea cucumber’s cloaca using it for protection from predation, a source of food (the nutrients passing in and out of the anus from the water), and to develop into their adult stage of life. Many polychaete worms and crabs have also specialized to use the cloacal respiratory trees for protection by living inside the sea cucumber.
I feel smarter already! Now, time for lunch.
Related posts:
5 Comments
Looking at your banner, Chiyo-chan’s father kind of looks like a Sea-Slug.
Freakin’ Worms. Even Sea Cucumbers have them.
Those things are everywhere. Sea Worms! Anime Blogs….naw, that just doesn’t have the “Slugs” ring to it.
It should be so easy to make a butt joke, but I’m coming up blank! Must be the time… 01:00am is seldom a good time for humour inspiration…
Zzz…
Namako teemu banzai!
BOOOLALALALAAL im a ruby pink colour WOOT LALALALAA
heh – I read ‘predation’ as ‘penetration’. Oh dear, and I’m supposed to be a zoologist. I guess I can still be a zoologist with a dirty mind ^^;