It is with a heavy heart that I must announce the passing of the world's greatest slut slug, Gigi.
This is the last picture of her taken on the morning of April 11th, 2024. I believe she passed sometime between the night of the 11th and the evening of the 12th. I didn't clean the drips off the glass for this picture, I would if I knew this would be the last time I would see her beautiful visage I would have cleaned it so good.
She appeared healthy, but I had also been noticing egg spirals on the glass for the past couple weeks.
When I looked up egg laying shapes of all the mollusks in my tank, the only one that fit perfectly was that of Elysia diomedea — the species that Gigi was. Usually Elysia species need a mate to lay eggs, and she was the sole sea slug in the tank. However, Elsyia are all simultaneous hermaphrodites, and I wonder if her species is able to self-fertilize in the absence of a mate.
This unfortunately may have been her undoing, some Elysia species die shortly after laying eggs. I couldn't find if this is true for E. diomedea, very little is known about Gigi's species. I had her for about a year and most Elysia species live 1-2 years at most. No idea how old she was when I got her.
I didn't find her body. When Elysia species die, their bodies quickly disintegrate. You can often only tell they passed by their absence - these beautiful slugs rarely ever remain out of sight due to their partially photosynthetic nature.
She lived slow and died fast, chonked up on her favorite algae. She has climbed up a tendril of bryopsis into the sky, the galaxy on her back becoming one with the stars.
RIP Gigi, I will miss your silly muppet face, gorgeous ruffles and cat-like body language and the comfort you seemed to find splayed out to the light or curled up on a chunk of your favorite meal. You brought me and many others an amazing amount of joy in your short life. If any of your veligers survive into sluglets, I will raise them to the best of my abilities. If anyone else is interested in keeping one as a pet, please do a ton of research. They have very specific needs and eat a ton of live bryopsis species algae, and very little else. They won't eat nori or microalgae.