Absurd Creatures| The Nudibranch Says, ‘Hey, I’m Super Colorful. So No Touchy'

[Narrator] The animal kingdom has a very important rule.

Bright colors mean I will mess you up.

And no creature in the sea says I will mess you up

more emphatically than the brilliant nudibranch.

But this sea creature is kind of a cheater.

It gets it's colorful defense

from other animals by eating them.

Some eat corals and others jellyfish stingers.

To which you might say,

Well, I can't eat jellyfish stingers.

That's because unlike a nudibranch,

you don't excrete a special mucus to protect your esophagus.

Well, at least I hope you don't.

But even if you did,

the stingers wouldn't make their way through the wall

of your stomach and end up in your skin.

But with the nudibranch, they do.

And voila!

A previously defenseless creature now packs a serious punch.

Not literally of course, because, well, no arms.

Particularly powerful is a species called the Blue Dragon,

which steals the stingers

of the infamous Portuguese Man-of-War.

So, just like, never touch one of these.

But it gets even better.

Some species slightly modify their stolen defenses

leading to novel compounds.

And many of these have anti-inflammatory properties.

Unfortunately, if you eat a nudibranch

it won't be like popping an ibuprofen.

Also, it would be weird.