Slugs are not what you’d normally call “cute” creatures, but the Jorunna Parva species is an exception. These marine slugs bear a striking resemblance to small rabbits, which has recently earned them the nickname ‘sea bunnies’.
Jorunna parva slugs were discovered by Japanese malacologist Kikutaro Baba in 1938, but the rest of the world has only become aware of their irresistible cuteness last year, when footage from a Japanese diving school was released online. The clip, featuring parva off the coast of Japan, has gone viral on the internet and people all over the world are going ga-ga over the adorable underwater creatures.
The footage was recorded in the Kumomi region of Japan in March last year, by Japan-based Dive Store Exiles, but it only went viral this weekend, when it started trending on Twitter. Some users compared the creatures to Pokemon’s Pikachu, while others called them ‘mochi (Japanese rice cake) seasoned with sesame and bunny ears’.
Photo: video caption
According to the video, the sea slugs are ‘gomafu biroodo umiushi’, which translates to ‘black speckled velvet sea slug’. Parva are covered in tiny sensory bumps, or tubercles, surrounded by needle-like spicules. Most of them are small and cover the slug’s body, but some of them are larger and resemble ears or leaves. While parva are mostly yellow and brown, the ones in the video are white with patches of black.
Photo: Hatena
The Jorunna genus consists of 27 species and can be found across Japan, the Philippines, and Seychelles, but the parva are believed to be the cutest of all.
Photo: crawl ray
Photo: Telegraf Ukraine
via RocketNews24
