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Shan's Genius Hour
24
The Blue Dragon
By: Shan Grewal #12
EATING POISON!?
Defence mechanism
The Blue Dragon (also known as the Blue Glaucus) isn't born with a way to defend itself so over the years, they have adapted to eating other poisonius creatures like the Atlantic Portuguese man o' war, a small type of siphonophore, a group of animals that are closely related to jellyfish. The Blue Dragon can't produce its own poison so it takes it from other poisonous sea creatures and fulls up its nematocysts and injects it underneath its skin.
Portuguese Man o' War
Portuguese Man o' War
This siphonophore lives along side the Blue Dragon as one of its main food sources. This jellyfish-like creature has a very powerful sting that could really damage someone or something. The Blue Dragon eats this not to fufill its hunger but to have a storage of poison to use in its own stings
P.S If you want a Blue Glaucus as a pet, the creature itself is kind of expensive because it's endangered, but the food is the Portuguese Man o' War which isn't cheep.
Inside of the nematocysts
nematocysts are small tenticle-like arms sea creatures use to sting their prey
Ball Formation
The Blue Glaucus, usally when it reaches the surface of the water, roll up into a ball and dance around (This is where it gets its "Blue Angle" name from). This is used to get into a formation to protect itself and possibly attack.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWztyHHIsFk
This is what the Blue Glaucus looks like when it does its defence formation
This is what the Blue Glaucus looks like when ...
Camoflage
Blue Glaucus' skin has a special reaction to light and since it lives on the surface of the water, its perfect for disguising itself from birds and undersea creatures. It uses the sun's light to darken certain parts of its body and lighten up others. This creates a kind of allusion that makes it look like its in the air, water, or in a different part of the water when it really isn't.
Camoflage
Why is it Popular?
Believe it or not, the Blue Dragon was famous because of its weird looks and so led to lots of people catching and studying them. People also think the Blue Glaucus looks like a "Pokemon." It is also quite common for people to pick them up after they are washed up on beaches and keep them as pets.
Why is it popular?
The Experiments
The Experiments
Recently, due to the growing popularity, lots of scientists have captured and did tests on the Blue Glaucus and many resulted in deaths. They never cared about if they died or not because of how common they were in certain regions but are now on the cusp of extinction.
Where it lives
Where it lives
This is a Baby "Dragon"
Ecosystem
Some Blue Glaucus lived in the Humboldt Current ecosystem in Peru. This eco system is unique because it is a major Eastern Boundary Upwelling Ecosystem that flows north along the western coast of South America. It is an eastern boundary current flowing in the direction of the equator, and extend 500–1,000 kilometers (310–620 miles) offshore. This ecosystem is full of water, poisonous animals (Beneficial to the Blue Glaucus remember), and food.
What land mass?
Blue Glaucus live in the east and south coasts of South Africa, European waters, the east coast of Australia and Mozambique. They use to be very populated in these regions but are now rare to find.
Body of Water
Benifits
The environment Blue Glaucus live in are full of poisonous animals, lots of underwater plants to hide in (even though they spend their entire day on the surface of the water for camoflage).
Names
Names
The Blue Glaucus has many names such as the sea swallow, blue angel, blue glaucus, blue dragon, blue sea slug and blue ocean slug, and the blue sea cucumber. Each name either represents their family or what actions the Blue Glaucus does.
SCIENTIFIC CLASSIFICATION
SPECIES/FAMILY
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Gastropoda
Superfamily: Aeolidioidea
Family: Glaucidae
Genus: Glaucus
Species: G. atlanticus
Glaucus atlanticus
Doris radiata Gmelin, 1791
SCIENTIFIC CLASSIFICATION
NAMES OVER TIME
Glaucus distichoicus d'Orbigny, 1837
Glaucus flagellum Blumenblach, 1803
Glaucus hexapterigius Cuvier, 1805
Glaucus lineatus Reinhardt & Bergh, 1864
Glaucus longicirrhus Reinhardt & Bergh, 1864
Summary
Blue Glaucus is going extinct because of popularity.
Zero
The Blue Glaucus has many different names.
WHAT DID WE LEARN?
Summary
They have a very unique defence mechanism and eat poisonous creatures and are very smart in movement.