Today's Guardian Country Diary is about this sea gooseberry Pleurobrachia pileus that we found stranded on the sands at Seaburn beach near Sunderland. When I scooped it up into this container and added sea water it was still alive but it died before I could return it to the sea.
Sea gooseberries are correctly called Ctenophores but in these closer images you can see why they are also known as comb jellies - there are eight rows of beating cilia, arranged like combs, along their flanks, providing propulsion and maintaining their position in the plankton.
Sea gooseberries are predators, trailing a pair of tentacles that trap planktonic fish larvae and the larvae of crabs and molluscs.
For a closer look at sea gooseberries, with tentacles extended and some movie, see
http://cabinetofcuriosities-greenfingers.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/sea%20gooseberry
and
http://beyondthehumaneye.blogspot.co.uk/2009/09/sea-gooseberries.html
and
http://beyondthehumaneye.blogspot.co.uk/2009/09/sea-gooseberry-videos.html
Yet another wonder to look for. Thanks for the links.
ReplyDeleteIt looks very interesting. I had never heard of them before.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteYou might like this YouTube movie about the surface life of the oceans https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFQ_fO2D7f0#t=87
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletePlankton moved the marine biologist Walter Garstang to write poetry. The Ballad of the Veliger or How the Gastropod got its Twist is his most famous effort, reproduced at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Garstang
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteLooks like a type of jellyfish. I presume they might accidentally sting humans just like them, causing painful rashes, right?
ReplyDeleteThey don't have a sting that can be felt by humans - they're completely harmless to us.
Delete