Meet the Adorable "Sea Bunny" Taking Over the Internet
Despite its cute and cuddly appearance, this little sea creature is actually a kind of slug.
Say hello to this week's Internet overlord, the fluffy-looking "sea bunny."
The animal isn't actually a tiny ocean-dwelling rabbit. The creature eliciting "awwws" around the world is a type of sea slug called Jorunna parva.
Most are less than an inch (2.5 centimeters) long and can be found throughout the Indo-Pacific Ocean from South Africa to the central Pacific. Though the most popular images of these animals show white animals with black spots, these sea slugs are usually yellow or orange. (See pictures of other colorful sea slugs.)
"We don't know for sure what these organs do," says Ángel Valdés, a sea slug expert at California State Polytechnic University in Pomona. But "they probably play sensory roles."
The sea bunny's "ears," or
