Paul Naylor weighs up some familiar marine creatures weirdly named after items you’ d expect to see in a fruit and veg store
CRITTERCONFIDENTIAL
Small sea lemon on the move
Oranges and lemons
Paul Naylor weighs up some familiar marine creatures weirdly named after items you’ d expect to see in a fruit and veg store
Ever wonder why listing some of the animals you saw on your last dive makes it sound as though you have visited an aquatic greengrocer?
On land, animals generally move around to munch plants or chase other creatures to catch and eat them. Living in the relatively empty and sterile world of air, you don’ t
Thriving example of a sea orange sponge in Plymouth Sound
18 have much choice. But when you live in a watery environment packed with delicious plankton, why rush around when you can just sit in one place and let it come to you? Many marine invertebrates are sedentary filter feeders; and while this may explain some of the plant-based names, it isn’ t the whole story.
Here we take a light-hearted look at half a dozen examples of strangely named but familiar creatures.
I guess there is some excuse for giving the sea orange( Suberites ficus) a fruit-based name. Early naturalists thought sponges were plants because they stayed in one spot and some had tree-like branches. They are in fact animals because, although they have no defined organs, gut or nervous system, they can respond to touch and have other animal-like characteristics. Their simplicity makes them experts at regeneration and historic experiments showed how they could even reform themselves after being passed through a sieve.
There is much less justification for the common name of the sea lemon( Archidoris pseudoargus) because this nudibranch sea slug is an active, albeit slow-moving predator of sponges. Nudibranchs are notoriously choosy about their food and the sea orange is among this one’ s favourite prey.‘ Where does a lemon eat an orange’ could be a question for your next quiz! Despite being among our largest and most common nudibranchs, sea lemons can be hard to spot because their apparently garish colours often blend in well with the