Mystical, glowing creatures called sea angels flutter under the ice of Russia’s White Sea
A Russian diver named Alexander Semenov has captured footage of all kinds of strange sea creatures under the ice of the Arctic Ocean… the sea angel is one of the coolest.
Less glamorously known as a “sea slug,” the sea angel is about 3-7 centimeters long.
Its brightly colored organs can be seen glowing through its bluish translucent body. And unlike regular slugs, sea angels have wings.
“This miniature mollusk is an incredibly graceful swimmer; watching it is a complete pleasure,” Semenov told National Geographic. “They seem to float in the air, slowly waving their wings.”
Semenov and his team are known for their expeditions into extremely harsh conditions, including the White Sea of Russia during the winter, in -2-degrees-Celcius water.
This is the best time to capture the sea angels, before they disappear to an unknown location in the spring.
“At some point they suddenly appear under an ice cap covering the sea, and in a few weeks, there are so many that in one cubic meter of water column, there can be up to 500 sea angels!” Semenov shared in a Facebook post from January 2020.
Sea angels can be found in oceans around the world, but mostly in Arctic and Subarctic waters, where they grow the largest.