ragged sea hare bursatella leachii

This looks nothing like the SEA HARES I’ve seen in the past that gracefully dance through the water flapping their wings like a beautiful bird. I know, this guy looks like Bob Slug Marley… in need of a haircut. I found this RAGGED SEA HARE at the  Sanibel Lighthouse Beach yesterday morning at low tide where there were ooodles of them! I’ve never seen one of these before! We’ve had some strange winds from all directions and very choppy seas the last few days so I think they got pushed in right after they “hatched”. When they got out of the water, they retracted their horns and pigtails (haha- they are actually called papillae but let’s go with pigtails for now) and rolled up in ball. This gives new meaning to “hare ball”, right?

ragged sea hare ball

And yes! Another video! I loooove finding and learning about new sea life and add  it to my BEACH BLING  identification page!

Ummmm…. Please don’t tell anyone else that I heard what this RAGGED SEA HARE was saying… they might think I’m crazy.  ;)

Oh and I had witnesses that will tell you I wasn’t crazy listening to these guys. I ran into Dan and Tina (TN) who were at the Lighthouse shelling finding all of these fantastic shells while I pointed out the RAGGED SEA HARES…

dan tina shelling sanibel lighthouse

And! To top it all off, I saw Karen with her cutie aqua iLS shirt and iLS cap on! I first met Karen and Dexter (St Louis) after they found a huge MEGALADON SHARKS TOOTH at Blind Pass last year. It was so good to see yall again!

dexter karen shell shirt

PS- If you don’t know already, there is a tropical storm in the Atlantic predicted to become Hurricane Isaac which is on a path headed towards Southwest Florida. If it stays on this path and gains strength, I’ll let you know in a quick post if we have to evacuate. Fingers crossed that we only get shells and NOT a hurricane.

isaac path