Globe-trotting nudibranch arrives in Australia

摘要

Nudibranchs are especially good at hitching rides on ships' hulls; one could describe them as long-distance back-packers. Their rapid life cycles, high reproductive output, physiological adaptability and opportunistic diets, have preadapted them to travel widely round the globe thanks to mankind's sea voyages. So extensive are their travels that it is now impossible to tell the original distribution of at least two nudibranchs that have become established in Australia in the last 50 years (Thecacem pennigera and Qkeniapellurida).