Michael Middlebrooks

If you are interested in photosynthetic sea slugs I would love to chat.

Here are a few of the nudibranchs that I was able to film while visiting Komodo National Park in Indonesia earlier this month. #nudibranch #slug #invertebrate #indonesia #scuba 🦑

You should definitely write that! That would be a great teaching resource.

Komodo dragon going for a stroll on Rinca island in Komodo National Park, Indonesia. #komodo #dragon #indonesia #lizard #biglizardinmybackyard

Also the food in Indonesia is the best. I could eat mie goreng every single day.

Two extremely attractive people posing behind a large Komodo dragon. The people are wearing grey shirts and smiling. The Komodo dragon looks like it might be smelling a flower, but probably is just resting near the flower.

Recently got back from an amazing trip to Flores, Indonesia with @elizabeth-in-fla.bsky.social. We had some fantastic scuba dives and got to see some wild Komodo dragons! They are so cool! #indonesia #komodo #dragon

Scanning electron micrographs of the radula from Elysia chlorotica. A, Complete radula of E. chlorotica. B, Leading tooth of E. chlorotica. C, Leading tooth magnified to illustrate serrated cusp of tooth on the leading edge and housing depression on the trailing edge.

Also check out these awesome radula photos that my student Samantha Schlegel took for the paper! In sacoglossans the radula is a microscopic tooth-like structure that they use to pierce the algae that they feed on.
#microscopy #radula #mollusca

I am very excited to have a population of these slugs that I can easily collect! It was difficult when I had to get them from New England.

A composite photo of two specimens of the sea slug Elysia chlorotica. The slug is green in color and looks almost like a leaf with small rhinophores on the head. The photo on the left, labeled A, is a lighter green color and is the specimen from Tampa Bay. The one on the right labeled B, is from Massachusetts, and is a darker color green. There is a 1cm scale bar on the image.

Very excited to share the discovery of a new population of the sacoglossan sea slug Elysia chlorotica in Tampa Bay! The new paper is out online now!
#seaslug #sacoglossan #invertebrate #academicsky

doi.org/10.4003/006....

We're hiring a Biology Lab coordinator at the University of Tampa. We need someone to start in a few weeks, so apply now if you are interested: utampa.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Staff/...

#biology #academicsky

A photograph of the sea slug Elysia zuleicae. The slug is brownish green with a pointed tail and large rhinophores. The eyes are small black dots at the base of the rhinophores. The slug is crawling over a flat mass of filaments of the green algae Udotea.

The sacoglossan sea slug Elysia zuleicae in Roatan, Honduras crawling around on the algae Udotea sp. This slug is a specialist herbivore, feeding and living on Udotea. #sluglife #invertebrates

Great talks so far at day one of the Association of Marine Laboratories of the Caribbean scientific meeting. amlc-carib.org/2025-amlc-me...

Visiting Assistant Professor, Biology If you are a current University of Tampa student, please search for and apply to student jobs here via Workday. Job applications for current students will not be considered if submitted through the ex...

My department is hiring a visiting professor for this upcoming academic year to teach introductory Biology and non-majors Biology courses. #academicsky utampa.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Facult...

A very colorful lettuce sea slug, Elysia crispata. This slug has frilly parapodia that are white at the tip followed by a red band and then a yellow band. The body of the animal is green, but parts of it are blue and it also has some large white and yellow spots. The slug is sitting on some limestone on a coral reef.

A top down view of the dorsal side of a lettuce sea slug, Elysia crispata. The slug is sitting on some limestone on a coral reef surrounded by algae. The slug has ruffly parapodia with a white edge followed by a red band, followed by a yellow band. The slugs body color is a greenish turquoise. The rhinophores are white.

Look at the colors on these sea slugs! These must be the most colorful lettuce slugs, Elysia crispata, that I have ever found. I ran across these two on a dive in Roatan, Honduras while I was there teaching my Coral Reefs course. #sluglife #invertebrates 🦑

This is intended to be a "feel good" post, but for those of you wondering I do teach the students that coral restoration is not the total solution to saving coral reefs. It is one part of the puzzle along with limiting nutrient pollution, creating and enforcing MPAs, mitigating climate change, etc.

Photograph of several scuba divers cleaning coral nursery trees. The trees are an arrangement of PVC suspended in the water with small coral colonies hanging from them.

I'm in Roatan, Honduras teaching my Coral Reefs class. Yesterday my students took part in some of the coral restoration efforts by cleaning the coral nursery and outplanting a few coral colonies. Today is their underwater lab practical exam. I love getting students underwater and into the field!

Do you have a lab section associated with your course?

One of these days I'm going to write a symbiosis course. Glad yours is going well!

A big cookie cake that is decorated with a picture of a green Elysia chlorotica sea slug. The cake also says "2025" down each side, "Congrats" at the top, and "Abbie, Anja, Grace" at bottom.

I had my annual end of the year celebration with my research students last night. One of them brought in this cookie cake! #sluglife

The nudibranch sea slug Plocamopherus lucayensis. The slug is a red/orange color with some purple spots on its body. There are purple rings around the base of its rhinophores. The gills are white. The slug is crawling on a brown colony of bryozoans.

Here is a lovely nudibranch sea slug, Plocamopherus lucayensis. I found this slug crawling on a colony of Bryozoans, which is what it eats, while I was scuba diving in the Gulf of Mexico. #sluglife #nudibranch #invertebrate

This is fantastic! Looking forward to the comic!

Two won oral presentation awards at the Florida Academy of Sciences meeting and one won an award for her poster at our college symposium.

My undergraduate researchers are crushing it this year. All three of my graduating seniors won awards for their research presentations!

Fantastic shots! I would love to see one these mink in the wild!

Some plants in them sitting on a balcony. The plant in the center is has long light green and somewhat spikey leaves.

A small tree frog hiding wedged in between some leaves in the middle of a plant. The leaves are green and the from is yellowish brown color.

Sometimes your potted plants include a secret frog. #secretfrog

Michael Middlebrooks: The fantastically weird world of photosynthetic sea slugs Meet the fantastically colorful and astonishingly adaptable sea slugs that found a way to photosynthesize (or create energy from sunlight) like plants. Diving deep into these often overlooked creature...

Hello! I'm a malacologist, and my specific area of expertise is sea slugs that steal chloroplasts from the algae they eat to then become photosynthetic animals.

If you are interested, I would love to talk with you about them! You can also learn more in my TED talk: go.ted.com/michaelmiddl...

I never found any in shallow water, but I would still give it a try. Whatever you find in the Galapagos it will be worth seeing!

I couldn't get away from slugs if I tried!

A hermit crab with red/orange striped legs wearing a shell that has barnacles and a large anemone on it. The anemone has a small nudibranch feeding on it.

A close up view on an anemone with purple base and white tips on the tentacles. There is a nudibranch, Spurilla braziliana, that is yellow in color with white spots. The slug has curly cerata and is feeding on the anemone.

A close up view on an anemone with purple base and white tips on the tentacles. There is a nudibranch, Spurilla braziliana, that is yellow in color with white spots. The slug has curly cerata and is feeding on the anemone.

Fun surprise in my Invertebrate Zoology lab! Today we were covering crustaceans so I was showing my students a hermit crab that wears anemones on its shell. Then I noticed that there was a nudibranch (Spurilla braziliana) eating one of the anemones!

#sluglife #invertebrate 🦑

I don't write fiction (I'm a scientist), but I encourage all of my students to read anything because time spent reading improves their ability to write.

It's wild to me that people who want to write fiction would avoid reading fiction.