nudibranche abyssal

Marrus orthocanna Kramp, 1942

A large orange deep-water Arctic colonial jellyfish

Size

• colony length exceeds 1-2 m
• nectosome (swimming end) upto 10 cm

Color & Characteristics

• Red/orange with different hues on different parts of the body 
• Physonect (gas float) yellow-orange
• Nectophores (swimming units) translucent with bright red canals.

Habitat

• Primarily Arctic, with records in the subarctic Atlantic
• Mostly mesopelagic concentrated between 200 and 800 m
• Bathypelagic records to ~2000 m

Feeding

• Animals swim, then pause and deploy tentacles creating a fishing curtain 30-50 cm from the body stem
• The diet is unstudied, but likely larger crustaceans such as decapods, krill and mysids, as well as copepods

Life cycle

• Holoplanktonic,
• Details, including generation time and life-expectancy unknown

Page Author: Kevin Raskoff & Russ Hopcroft
Created: Aug 20, 2010