Sea Slug Crossing the Coral Tidepools

A purple sea slug with orange-tipped blue horns and a plume of feathery green and lilac gills crawls across a rocky tidepool shelf. Its back is dotted with spots in peach, green and yellow, and a cream frill ripples along its sides above a teal, speckled foot. Tiny people have made a home on it: two stand by the horns, a family shelters in a timber lean-to among the gills, two gardeners tend a vegetable patch near a yellow sponge, and others climb ladders to a small platform. One swimmer paddles in a pool beside it. Around the slug, channels of shallow water wind between orange sponges, blue anemones, starfish, shells and a red crab. The slug's long curve and the winding channels give the picture clear bands of colour that sort neatly into pieces.