Hopkins Rose or the Okenia rosacea is a species of sea slug that is the brightest pink. They are a gorgeous species but only really found south of San Francisco in California. They were discovered in 1905 by a scientist names MacFarland. This little guys get their color the same way that Flamingos do. These guys eat little pink things called bryozoan, which is a filter-feeding carpet of clones. This creature is completely harmless and have no real defense other then their color. Since, they are such a bright color it is easy to think the slug is poisonous but it is not at all. It is just a gooey little pink ball.

As I mentioned before the slug lives on the coast of San Francisco but in recent years something weird has happened.  These very rare little slugs have started moving much farther north to almost the top of California and in tide pools all over the coast line. It is something a number of marine biologists have been wondering about because the last time this happened was in the 1970’s.

The most likely reason for this is because of ocean currents and unseasonably warm weather, specifically the massive El Nino this year. For those who do not know El Nino is a meteorological event that causes ocean currents to change, massive weather anomalies, and even complete, if temporary, environmental shifts. This is usually disasters for agriculture and animal life but not for the Hopkins Rose. The main reason is because as plankton they move on normally very small ocean currents until they develop onto a slug form. However, El Nino has made this small ocean current huge and is effecting how far and for how long they travel. This is the largest “blob”, and yes that is what a group of slugs like this is called, to ever be spread out across such a distance in California. It is really cool especially considering how some scientistics think we can now use these guys to measure how bad El Nino and other meteorological events will be here in the United States. it has not been tested yet but the idea seems sound.

While not nearly as interesting the cousin to the Hopkins Rose is another species of Okenia called Okenia Acadmia the  which is found near the coast of Puerto Rico. This little guy is a totally different species but just as interesting. It is the relative same shape and size but it has a completely different color and pattern.

This little guy eats seaweed and gets his color from the minerals in the water where they live. This little guy was discover in 2004 and other then diet, color and location it is completely the same as the Hopkins Rose. One thing I thought of was if this thing was just like the Hopkins Rose could its pattern be used to measure meteorological events as well? Maybe but first we need to see if the Hopkins Rose can.

Sources

http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=599485

http://www.news.ucsb.edu/2015/014920/roses-bloom-california-tide-pools

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v370/n6488/abs/370360a0.html

http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Terrence_Gosliner/publication/263162969_A_New_Species_of_Okenia_(Gastropoda_Nudibranchia_Goniodorididae)_from_the_Pacific_Coast_of_Costa_Rica/links/00b4953a119fe54876000000.pdf