Matt is right about how they are kept, and Jrsydevi1 is right about the shooting star aspect. They pretty much only dine on hydroids and other really tiny cnidarians. They have voratious appitites, and in captivity get out competed by skeleton shrimp that live on the hydroids that we collect. The main reason that we collect the nudi's at all is because they are used in an intro bio lab for the university. That is pretty much why I get anything. I have started running them through a bed of mussels that I keep for dissection, and they have started to live a little longer. There is a lot of random stuff to eat living on the mussels. Also, one of my favorite pastimes is feeding them to Navanax (another sea slug). In fact, Matt and I took a cool video of this behavior that I will share if I ever figure out how to share video. Incidentally, these nudi's are some of the coolest animals around. They are capable of keeping the cnytocytes (stinging cells) of the cnidarians that they prey upon in an unfired state. The cnytocytes then travel to the orange "gill" portion of the nudibranch as a form of protection. Kool with a capital K. In fact, you can buy sunscreen with jellyfish repellant on beaches that have lots of jellyfish. The guy that invented the stuff basically ground up a bunch of these little guys and figured out what they are made of. Then he put whatever lets them keep the cnytocytes unfired in a tube, and sold it for $20 a pop.
Sorry for the length, but with dorkyness comes longwindedness.
Mike
