Our first meeting with a sea slug

Dear James,
Since your sea slug was washed up, and swam when you put it back in the water, I guess you probably saw a Sea Hare, and one likely species in Port Stephens is Aplysia extraordinaria. In fact if you look on the Fact Sheet for that species, the photos are of animals from Port Stephens. If you go to the General Topics Index [in Menu at top left of page] you will find a list of Fact Sheets on Sea Hares. Sometimes they are very common in rock pools and sometimes they wash up in large numbers on sandy beaches. 

Since sea slugs live in water you don't usually find them washed up on beaches, but if you look in rock pools and under rocks you may be lucky to find some of the more brilliantly coloured nudibranch sea slugs. Be careful if you turn over rocks to put them back they way you found them so that all the plants and animals living on the underside of the rocks don't dry out. Port Stephens is a very interesting place for sea slugs and scuba divers have found a great variety of species living there, some of which are more common in tropical waters. If you type port stephens in the SEARCH box you will get a long list of messages about different kinds of sea slugs found in Port Stephens.

Best wishes,
Bill Rudman