Summary
These tiny sea slugs graze across seagrass blades like underwater lawnmowers. Deep Look zooms in on the rows of tiny teeth -- a radula -- that let a soft, shell-less animal scrape a meal off a slick plant.
Viewer safety
All ages
Our rating is a quick teacher-to-teacher guide — preview before showing.
Teaching resources
Discussion questions
Talk about it
A sea slug has a ribbon of tiny teeth called a radula. It rasps the ribbon back and forth to scrape algae and tissue off seagrass -- a mouth structure built for scouring rather than biting.
- What tool does a sea slug use to scrape its food?
- Why is a rough, rasping mouth useful for eating off a plant?
- How does the radula's shape match the slug's kind of food?
Quick work-a-long
Vocabulary: radula, scrape, structure, algae.
Try it: Rub a plastic fork gently across a soft eraser. Write how the sea slug's tiny teeth scrape food the same way.