My first thought was “Wow, nice clay snail sculptures.” But nope - nature makes these. Amazing psychedelic nature in all its infinite potentiality will make everything conceivable - on some planet somewhere - if it hasn’t already on this one.

They’re called nudibranchs, and they’re as toxic as they are beautiful (c.f.: poison dart frogs) - the coloration is a “don’t eat me” warning/billboard. No bones, no shell, nothing but tender, unprotected, inedible flesh slithering through the seas, testifying to nature’s infinite scope.

Text and jaw-dropping gallery at National Geographic. The sense of awe I get from these pictures? This is my religion.

Oh, and p.s.: If we stay on the current track of break-neck deforestation and reef destruction, one quarter of all species on earth today will be extinct by 2050.