Environment
Invasive Asian Sea Slugs Are Discovered in San Francisco for the First Time
Dendronotus orientalis nudibranchs likely hitched a ride to California in ballast water.
“[B]ut is it a good thing or bad that it’s here,” is the reasonable question posed by one viewer of this video that the California Academy of Sciences posted this week.
If San Franciscans start waking up with dozens of these things latched to their bodies, gently palpating the flesh while extracting vital fluids, we’ll know the answer is “bad.” But until then everything’s in the air, because this is reportedly the first sighting of Dendronotus orientalis ever recorded outside Asia.