#803: Violet Sea Snail

I confess, I initially chose the Violet Sea Snail merely for its name and because I never have enough invertebrates for this alphabet. But once I started learning about it, I realised that here was another awesome animal I had never heard of before.

The Violet Sea Snail is a marine mollusc with an unusual hunting technique. He excudes mucus, trapping bubbles of air to create a "raft", to which it clings, upside down. He then travels with the waves and the wind, preying on - get this! - free-floating hydrozoans, such as the Portugese man o' war. All Violet Sea Snails begin life as a male, changing to a female as she ages. Eggs are retained by the female until the larvae hatch.