Sea Hare

Hi,
It's so ugly, it's almost cute. Well, all most. The Sea Hare.

I learned about the Sea Hare yesterday morning from Professor Ed. He runs the beach on Marco island every morning and over the years we have become student-teacher buddies. Before he retired he really was a professor of economics, now his passion is the wildlife around the island. Ed volunteers at the nature center and gives lectures about the ecosystem and it's life.

Mornings when I walk the beach, Ed is out running his five miles. Almost every time we pass he will stop and have some fascinating tidbit about something that has washed up on the shore. The Sea Hare was yesterday's lesson. It looks like a giant snail without a shell. The ones washed up were almost 9-10" long. They have rhino-like horns on their head but someone thought they looked like rabbit ears, hence their name. Sea Hare produce a magenta ink when spooked, they are hermaphrodites (look that one up if you weren't paying attention in 9th grade biology) and the move with side slow side fins that make then look like something from a Star Trek episode. They also squirt a white goo to startle anything that thinks they should be on the menu, blinding their aggressor. They don't move very fast so this goo is nasty stuff, not toxic, just hard to get off. Ed is a wealth of facts.

I also got to hear about Sea Pork. It's even uglier than the Sea Hare, which, in its self is no easy feat. The Pork is a gluttonous mass with many sea creatures in it. Sort of like a condo for mini animal life. It looks like something a whale threw up. Gray, hard jelly with little bits of stuff in it. Totally gross looking but fascinating when Ed introduces it to you. I get my mini lectures while we walk a bit together. Ed picks up these things, does his schpeil, then tosses them back into the Gulf for them to live another day. It's fun to go to school on the beach....especially when I get a private tutorial from Ed.  It makes the flotsam on the shore more beautiful to me.

Xox
M