If you’re looking for abstract artistic inspiration from nature, wow this is it. Spectacularly colorful, nudibranchs are related to soft-bodied marine mollusks, but have recently been given their own taxonomic clade, Nudibranchia. Nudibranchs live at all depths of the ocean and range from less than an inch to about two feet in length (20 to 600 mm). They’re the most amazingly colorful creatures I’ve ever seen! (in pictures) It was hard to narrow them down to just a dozen for this post!
Update: These are not my own photos. I wish!! No, these are the work of professional and very talented underwater photographers. Click them to link to the original, full size images. About half of these are from wikimedia.org, and the rest are from divematrix.com, ianskipworth.com, photec.co.uk, absolutescubabaliindonesia.blogspot.com, and messersmith.
As near as I can tell, this beautiful nudibranch is called "Fed Ex"...
"Fed Ex" again
"Nudibranch" means 'naked gill'. The frill you see on most nudibranchs are the gills.
Nudibranch Tulamben
Nudibranch Tambja verconis
Nudibranch Phyllidiella pustulosa
Nudibranch "Hopkins Cuke"
Nudibranch Nembrotha chamberlaini
Nudibranchs Nembrotha milleri have more dramatic coloring
Nudibranchs Nembrotha purpureolineata. Best of all, the art makes itself!
Nudibranch Chromodoris willani
Nudibranch Berghia coerulescens
Nudibranchs Chromodoris lochi
Click here for more! (this is a Google image search on nudibranchs)
zorgor 
THESE ARE AMAZING
Wow, aren’t they though?? Glad you liked it! 🙂
Wow, these are stunning! Are they your own photos? The colors are spectacular and so lively. Beautiful. Thanks for sharing. 🙂
My photos? Heck no! 🙂 I wish! But I’m not a scuba diver. I just found these with a google image search… on something little known but cool. How did I even hear of these? I don’t even remember. But yeah, they are very stunning, aren’t they? Glad you liked them!
Ok, I hope I’ve backed into better photo attribution now… 🙂 I added an update with links to the sources.
Truly great photos! I want to take photos of things like that too. Maybe when I get back home, I’ll go to a pet shop for them. Great, great photos. I adore these!
Wow, you could buy these as pets?? That I didn’t know. I thought these fell solidly into the category of ‘exotic sea life’. I did not mean to give the impression that these are my own photos, if I did, because they’re not. But they are excellent photos, definitely. I just found these with google image search, and figured it’d make a good blog post because they’re so stunning and so little known. Anyway, glad you liked them!
Ok, I think maybe I’ve backed into better photo attribution now… 🙂
They are just wonderful, but not an every day meeting in every pond. 🙂
Heh, yeah. I’ve never seen one of these firsthand… Now I’d really like to! I just added an update with links to the sources.
Beautiful creatures!
Glad you liked them Dani!
Hi Zorgor! I nominated you for a Sunshine Award. Hope you can check out the list of things to do on my post and enjoy the award. You inspire us all.
Thanks again! That’s a very nice thing to say! I never thought of myself as a Muse… aaaannnddd I don’ think I’m going to start! 🙂 Nudibranchs certainly inspire me. Thanks again for the award. 🙂
Thanks for sharing, incredible creatures and images.
Glad you liked them! Heh, I wouldn’t be surprised if most of these were found in the Great Barrier Reef!
Wow! Stunning!
Yeah! Aren’t they? Wow. Who knew this stuff was swimming… on Earth! The oceans are full of amazing things.