Sea Hares
On Mother’s Day in 2016, we saw some marvelous things. There were several of them, these strange little creatures, moving about gracefully and silently in the water beneath and around our dock. My husband and I had never seen anything quite like them. We’d only been living on Dinkins Bayou for about a year, and before that we had not lived on salt water. We had never seen such a weird and beautiful creature that swam like a sting ray, by flapping its “wings,” which are called parapodia . The next day, I posted photos of the creatures on Facebook and asked my knowledgeable friends, “What is this little sea creature?” Mottled Sea Hare or Sooty Sea Hare (Aplysia fasciata) in Dinkins Bayou. Sea hares vary in color according to the color of the algae that they eat. The answers came quickly: sea hares, a.k.a. sea slugs. Wildlife educator Richard Finkel replied, “Sea hares. They come to shore in spring to deposit their eg...