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The Spanish dancer (Flabellina iodinea) is the most common and flashy of the nudibranchia, a sea slug. It is easy to see why it is called the Spanish dancer as its colors resemble a flamenco dancer costume. This species also "dances" occasionally by letting go of the substrate and wildly thrashing its body back and forth, creating the same look as a flashy flamenco dancer's skirt.
This is just one of the thousands of "tidepool treasures," marine plants and animals found in the small bodies of water left by the ebbing tides that fill the rock basins and depressions along California's rocky shores.Image credit: Genny Anderson, Santa Barbara City College
