[Art] Glaucus atlanticus as Totem

[moonvoice]

This little nudibranch has had a few requests over the years. Probably the most requested unusual creature that I haven't drawn yet, and will be in the Unusuals deck.

I actually expected there to be a bevy of information about this little guy, and was surprised to see that aside from knowing that it absorbs and concentrates nematocysts, very little is actually known about how it lives. It makes sense, given it floats on the open ocean, but it's always been really interesting to me how these animals that don't necessarily have a wealth of information attached to them become fixed in the human mind.

These nudibranchs, because they're so pretty and colourful and interesting, have been featured in the media a few times, and yet there's still so much we don't know about them.

*


Blue Dragon/Sea Swallow || Glaucus atlanticus




Keywords:

Air and water elements. Topsy turvy. At the mercy of the weather. Following the currents around you for good or ill. Wind wisdom. Water wisdom. Turning what others experience as pain into profit and nourishment. Protecting yourself. Stinging words. Nature’s mercy. Let go of the future. Spiral magic. Not everything is meant to be under your control. Letting go.

Description:

Glaucus atlanticus is a nudibranch, or sea slug, that goes by many common names, like the sea swallow, blue dragon and blue angel. It is found in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. It’s a small, blue, gastropod mollusc without a shell. It grows to a maximum of three centimetres. It’s pelagic, living in the open sea in both temperate and tropical waters, travelling by floating upside down relying on the winds and ocean currents to move them. What humans normally see when looking at them, is actually their foot. They use a combination of air stored in a gas sac and surface tension to stay up. They use countershading, the blue side of their body faces upwards which looks like the blue of the water and helps reflect harmful UV sunlight, their silvery-grey body faces downwards, looking like the sunlight refracting through the ocean’s surface.

They hunt pelagic jellyfish (like blue bottles and the Portuguese man o’war) and siphonophores, eating them with a serrated radula, strongly preferring venomous species, as they are immune to their stinging cells. They then store those stinging cells (nematocysts) within their own tissues in the tips of their cerata, the feathery finger-like appendages on its body. As a result, G. atlanticus can sometimes develop and transmit a sting many times more concentrated than the animals it feeds from, but as their stinging capacity is dependent on what they eat, they can sometimes be safely handled without stinging at all.

They are hermaphrodites, with male and female reproductive organs, and produce spiral shaped egg strings after mating. They have been known to lay those eggs on the carcasses of their prey, and other objects. It is not uncommon for G. atlanticus to wash up on beaches, which is where they’re most commonly seen. Mass strandings are unusual, but not unheard of. Masses of G. atlanticus floating together are known as blue fleets. Not much is known about them otherwise, due to their lifestyle in the open ocean making them difficult to study outside of captivity.

Comments

[cmcmck]

Thanks for sharing- we need all the art we can get at present!

[moonvoice]

Thank you! <3 I'm hoping to get started on the next batch over the next few days <3

[elinox]

I love the gold accents, they really draw the eye to the darker and more subtle shades of blue!

[moonvoice]

Thank you! I thought it would want all blue (I don't actually pick the majority of the colours, the totem does), but it went with yellow/orange/gold for that Solar Plexus / confidence / stinging warning. I'm glad it worked out in the end!

[redsixwing]

That is gorgeous. The movement, the floating feeling! The orbs and spirals!

This little blue dragon looks like a predator, which is an aspect I do not often see reflected. Beautifully done.

[moonvoice]

Yessss, usually they're just shown as like, super cute - WHICH THEY ARE - but man they are lethal hunters of lethal predators in the ocean, which is amazing to me.

[redsixwing]

It's so gorgeous and so potentially dangerous all at once!

I'm not usually much of one for oceanic critters, but...is this one going to be listed on Etsy by chance?

[moonvoice]

It will definitely be listed on Etsy after all the isolation and stuff! There'll probably be a whole lot going up at once, and I'll make sure to do an announcement here / on Facebook and Twitter about it. I'm holding off posting anything until we officially ease up on some of the restrictions in Australia though.

[redsixwing]

Ah, good idea. On multiple levels.

I will keep an eye out for it.

[silverjackal]

This is fantastic, but you know that already. ;D I've actually seen one of these in person in a tank, and it seemed to give off "zaps" as it swam. Very curious -- I have no physical basis for making that assertion. Your art captures that "snap" or "zap" which I can't articulate.

[moonvoice]

I have to inform you that in Australia, if there were blue fleets, children would sometimes go in the ocean and throw these at each other. Like, as a game. You know, a normal Australian children's game. x.x

But from that we know that many of them don't sting at all, depending on what they've been eating and how many nematocysts that they've been eating. (But I bet they wanted to.)

[silverjackal]

Heh, of course Australian children throw potentially venomous animals at each other. What else are they supposed to do? ;D

In all seriousness, the "zapping" wasn't physical. I can not seem to describe it adequately, it's like the animal was giving off electrical shocks without the shock part. Do you know what I mean or am I daft? (Perhaps don't answer that, because I know the answer is "Yes".)

[moonvoice]

Oh yes, I figured you mean energy zaps? It actually made me think of the sensation I've gotten from serotonin shock (withdrawing from an anti-depressant way too fast under bad doctor's advice). And it resonated, even drawing it - it's funny because looking at the photos didn't make me get that feeling, but after researching the animal and then trancing with it, I could *feel* how much it was a predator, and tried to bring that across in the illustration, especially in the gold swirls reaching out (and also in the presence of yellow/orange as a kind of more commonly understood 'Predator' colouration).

They might be small and beautiful, but all I can think of now when I see them, primarily, is that they deliberately want to eat lethal predators so they can *absorb* that lethality, and I find that really fascinating from like...an animal teacher perspective. Anyway, yes, the zaps makes sense! I'm actually really pleased it came across.

(Australian children are not very smart but they can be very daring *rolls eyes*

[silverjackal]

I didn't mean that observation about Australian children as questioning their relative intelligence. All children (and a fair proportion of adults) do stupid shit as a matter of course. It's just given the relative lethality of Austalian fauna that they have far more deadly things to do stupid shit with.

I am relieved you know what I mean about the zapping. The bloody things "zap" as they're swimming about, and it seemed like no one but me noticed it.