Liam’s viral post started with a spontaneous road trip last Sunday. He saw a photographer friend of his, Wayne Feisst, post a picture on Facebook of these blue sea slugs at Ohope Beach.
“He let me know the general area he saw them.”
Liam had a few hours spare, and is always up for an adventure, so he jumped in his truck with his brothers and a mate and headed through the gorge, leaving behind the fine Gizzy weather for more stormy conditions in the Eastern Bay of Plenty.
Once at Ohope Beach, he went down to the water line where he saw quite a few of the blue dragon sea slugs washed up on the tideline among hundreds if not thousands of bluebottle jelly fish.
He then went to Kmart to get a plastic tub so he could observe them better through his “makeshift portable aquarium”. Liam said he was very careful not to touch it so scooped it in and out with a shell.
A casual post on Facebook clocked up just over 10,000 views but it was when Liam posted it to Tik Tok that he and the blue sea slug went viral.
“I hadn’t used the Tik Tok app in like a year. A friend of mine shared her travel vid with me and it got me thinking, I should see how the wicked little creature would go on that platform.” He added a Pokemon soundtrack.
“After a few hours it didn’t look like it was going to go well as it only had four likes.”
Now his video has more than 730,000 likes, and climbing. It’s prompted Liam to become an active user on Tik Tok. Follow him and his spontaneous adventures @liamclaytonmedia
