nudibranche abyssal

Publié le 03 octobre 2010 par Junzi2

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