[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmBIDinJUr8&feature=related[/youtube]
Sea angels. They sound kind of made up, don’t they?
But they are real animals – a type of seashell that have lost their shells and spend their lives flitting about in the open ocean, propelled by a pair of little fairy wings.
We chatted to Rob Jennings from the University of Massachusetts about these curious critters, in an episode of the Naked Oceans podcast. He told us how some sea angels – seeing as how they’ve lost their shells – have evolved nasty-tasting chemicals to help fend off predators. And in a quirk of nature, a species of shrimp has adopted the habit of carrying a live sea angel around with them as a body guard.
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