2005.6 - MELIBE

These animals are six-inch long milky white hermaphroditic invertebrates that live in Monterrey bay on giant kelp. Their common name is the lion nudibranch, so it is a kind of mollusk, most closely related to a snail. They feed by opening and closing the hood, and holding the prey in with the tentacles. On this sculpture, all of the tentacles are broken off. I knew that this would probably happen, but I made the piece anyway because I thought the animal was so fantastic. Most animals, with the exception of a kelp crab, which eats it, avoid it because it releases a defensive secretion that smells like watermelon.