WILDLIFE
Illustration by Alice Goodridge
In springtime sea hares (Aplysia punctata) form an orderly queue for their orgy. They are hermaphrodite – have both male and female sex organs – and deploy that characteristic in mass mating events that take the form of stacks of sea hares. At the bottom of the pile the sea hare is fertilised and at the top of the pile the sea hare is the fertiliser. But throughout the rest of the stack every sea hare is both fertilised and fertiliser. If you miss their mating spree you may see where there has been one from the strings of pink-purple spawn left on seaweed.