#pleurobrachia

[noncompliantcyborg]

Some moments from nightlighting this year in the Salish Sea.

In order of appearance, this video features:

0:00 - Dendronotus iris, the giant nudibranch - first shown up close to show off its highly branched cerata, and then seen swimming. 0:22 - A harbor seal, Phoca vitulina richardii, swimming around the light while it hunts fish. 0:39 - Shrimp and fish circling the light. 1:08 - A squid jets by 1:12 - thousands of long thin larval fish school around the light 1:20 - A large cross jellyfish, Mitrocoma cellularia, pulses its bell to swim, fanning out its many fine tentacles 1:30 - many small fish swarm the pale blue light, blotting out portions of it 1:52 - a long yellow polychaete worm dances and weaves through the water column 2:04 - the crystal jellyfish, Aequorea victoria, swims with an incredible amount of Pleurobrachia bachei ctenophores and other animals in the background and then we zoom past to see more ctenophores. 2:18 - an egg yolk jelly, Phacellophora camtschatica swims by in deep blue water 2:30 - a nudibranch with long narrow cerata, Cumanotus sp., swims by swinging its body back and forth, whipping its cerata around. 2:43 - a sea gooseberry, Pleurobrachia bachei, spins through its fanned out tentacles in a gorgeous dance 2:57 - a small hydrozoan jelly with a yellow mouth and dots around its bell, Proboscidactyla flavicirrata, bounces, pulses, and then turns to the side showing off its branched radial canals 3:11 - a sea gooseberry, Pleurobrachia bachei, spins and casts rainbows with its ctenes, mouth up to the camera 3:21 - an odd gregarious jelly, Clytia gregaria, with an extra radial canal giving it a star shaped mouth, swims in the dark 3:27 - outro card "Thanks for Watching" with instagram, facebook, and bluesky icons and the handle ‪@NonCompliantCyborg‬

[sarahmackattack]

Every single one of these animals was found by me with almost no equipment along the jersey shore (just a fishing rod for the fish and a pint glass at most for everything else).

In order of appearance:

Horseshoe crab

Sea walnut (Mnemiopsis leidyi)

Mantis shrimp

Sea angel (clione)

Black Sea Bass

Spider crab

Sea gooseberry (Pleurobrachia pileus)

Unidentified crustacean larva

ghost crab

Want to learn more about the shore? Text SHORE to 1-833-SCI-TEXT

[chilirasbora]

Sea gooseberry | Pleurobrachia bachei

X, X

[patheticmosasaur1]

today's invertebrate.........pleurobrachia bachei

one time he ate 5 3.5 pound bags of sour patch kids and since then he hasn't been able to stop shaking. now he is a massive threat to anyone in a 50 meter radius around him

I'm sure it's fine

(pics by hermissenda, iNaturalist)

[megrosefrancis]

- Jellyfish Photo Dump - Lobed Comb Jellies and the cutest sea gooseberries. . . . . . #Jellyfish #combjellyfish #lobedcombjelly #lobedctenophore #ctenophores #pleurobrachia #seagooseberry #seagooseberries (at Long Beach, Simon's Town) https://www.instagram.com/p/CjBCiJkKtdQ/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[deeloveful]

so i recently discovered that florida had a ctenopalooza

i

i have some words

theres other terms in there (and actually informative stuff, which i mean beroe does love some mnemiopsis so)

it was held in 2016, and i wish i hadn’t been a high schooler back then

heres a photo of Beroe ovata (source)

[soniagivray]

Comb Jellies- Gelatin 😳😳😳, I found that, I will study whether they are living beings or not, will they get from here in Agar Agar ?! Will it be algae ... ??!? I know! Sea Gooseberries ... 🇪🇸🇪🇸🇪🇸🇪🇸. Gelatina de Canutillo de Mar 😳😳😳, eso encontré, ya me estudiaré si son seres vivos o no, será que sacan de aquí en Agar Agar?! Serán algas...??!? Ya se! Grosellas Marinas... #jellyfish#globalwarming#possums#jellyblob#jellyfisheggs#gooeyblobs#pleurobrachia#grosellasdemar#khokloi#phangnga#thailand#phuket#nataibeach#andamancreatures#aguaviva#calentamientoglobal (en Khok Kloi, Phangnga, Thailand) https://www.instagram.com/p/COZ2yfIBJpA/?igshid=nhygp0w5r2sb

[starrynightarchive]

thanks for the tag ^^

hardcover def.

hm see this is a tricky question. It depends on the book, really. Some books need a series. Some books hit harder if they're a standalone

young adult, if I had to choose. Even that isn't my fav these days. I just read what I vibe with

Enemies to lovers *scrambles to hide the 29738 posts about skk I liked*

lying down on the couch. bed doesn't give the right vibes

I used to be strictly against annotating, but recently I've been into marking stuff! I just started annotating crime and punishment and I enjoy it a lot :D

Dog ear cause what if the cracked spine falls apart :(( the thought stresses me out

@littlesp1ders @just-a-dinosaur-i-guess @feralshadowdemon @m-a-u-v-e @pleurobrachia @zukkaoru and anyone who's up for it really

𝚃𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚔 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚜𝚘 𝚖𝚞𝚌𝚑 @fluffyyymocha 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚊𝚐𝚐𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚖𝚎!! 𝙺𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝙸'𝚖 𝚊𝚕𝚠𝚊𝚢𝚜 𝚞𝚙 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚊𝚐𝚐𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚐𝚊𝚖𝚎𝚜 𝚜𝚘 𝚍𝚘𝚗'𝚝 𝚑𝚎𝚜𝚒𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚎 𝚒𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚐𝚎𝚝 𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚜𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚎 ✧(｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

𝙷𝚊𝚛𝚍𝚌𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝚘𝚛 𝚙𝚊𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚋𝚊𝚌𝚔? 𝚂𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚊𝚕𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚘𝚛 𝚜𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚜? 𝚄𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚛 𝟹𝟶𝟶 𝚙𝚊𝚐𝚎𝚜 𝚘𝚛 𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝟹𝟶𝟶 𝚙𝚊𝚐𝚎𝚜? 𝙲𝚑𝚒𝚕𝚍𝚛𝚎𝚗'𝚜 𝚘𝚛 𝚢𝚊? 𝙵𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚜 𝚝𝚘 𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝚘𝚛 𝚎𝚗𝚎𝚖𝚒𝚎𝚜 𝚝𝚘 𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚛? 𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚒𝚗 𝚋𝚎𝚍 𝚘𝚛 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚌𝚑? 𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚊𝚝 𝚗𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚘𝚛 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐? 𝙺𝚎𝚎𝚙 𝚙𝚛𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚎 𝚘𝚛 𝚖𝚊𝚛𝚔𝚞𝚙? 𝙲𝚛𝚊𝚌𝚔𝚎𝚍 𝚜𝚙𝚒𝚗𝚎 𝚘𝚛 𝚍𝚘𝚐 𝚎𝚊𝚛?

𝙷𝚊𝚍 𝚜𝚘 𝚖𝚞𝚌𝚑 𝚏𝚞𝚗 𝚍𝚘𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚋𝚝𝚠!

•°•°•

@againtodreaming @nnakahara @lovelyalicorn @deafeningdetectivesoul @doublesuicide19 @imfailingmyacademics @starlightt8 @easy-revenge @vivid-vices no pressure!

[sandywaders]

Comb Jellies

[noncompliantcyborg]

Pleurobrachia bachei, The Sea Gooseberry

Photo credit: my photo. High-res archival quality prints available here

[nature-love-stretch]

pleurobrachia pileus for your viewing pleasure

[nuadox]

Finding a rare fossilized comb jelly reveals new gaps in the fossil record

- By Richard Cloutier , Christian Klug , Mike Lee , The Conversation -

They look like jellyfish but they aren’t. They seem inoffensive but are efficient predators — occasionally, they even eat fish. They are gelatinous and very delicate — and extremely rarely do they fossilize!

Ctenophores, also known as comb jellies, are colourful, translucent animals, that drift through oceanic waters. Unlike jellyfish, ctenophores don’t have stinging cells, and typically capture prey using long, sticky tentacles.

Our research describing a fossilized ctenophore from Eastern Canada, published recently in Scientific Reports, suggests that our creature was a very late survivor from the very dawn of animals. It also means that a very controversial idea about early animal evolution can’t be rejected by the fossil record.

The new ctenophore fossil, Daihuoides jakobvintheri, was found in the fine sediments from Miguasha cliffs along the Restigouche River in the Gaspé Peninsula, eastern Québec. (Johanne Kerr), Author provided

Common today but rare as fossils

There are approximately 200 species of living ctenophores, and many are locally abundant. Some well-known modern comb jellies include the sea gooseberry (Pleurobrachia pileus) found in the open water in the northern Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea, and the ribbon-like Venus girdle (Cestum veneris) that can be seen in tropical and subtropical oceans worldwide.

However, their delicate bodies generally lack hard parts, meaning very few fossil ctenophores have been preserved and discovered: only about a dozen species have been found globally. Fossilization of these soft-bodied animals requires exceptional conditions such as very rapid burial with very fine sediments in an oxygen-poor aquatic environment, which suppresses the activities of decomposing and scavenging organisms. Other environmental parameters also play an important role in the preservation.

Until the early 1980s, comb jellies were unknown from the fossil record. The first comb jelly fossil to be discovered came from the Early Devonian Hunsrück Slate of Germany, deposited some 405 million years ago.

Since then, records of spectacularly preserved early relatives of comb jellies were described from the 518-million-year-old Chengjiang Biota in southern China, the 505-million-year-old Burgess Shale of British Columbia in Western Canada and other similar deposits.

In August, two new species of Cambrian comb jellies were also reported from Utah. Our new fossil, named Daihuoides jakobvintheri, adds substantially to this scant record.

Two alternative life reconstructions of the fossil comb jelly Daihuoides jakobvintheri, (A) as a pelagic animal like modern comb jellies, and resembles a jellyfish, and (B) as a benthic animal, like many Cambrian comb jellies, and resembles a sea anemone. (Scientific Reports), Author provided

Strange anatomical symmetry

Most living ctenophores have a translucent spherical or cylindrical body, frequently showing bright-coloured bioluminescence, vaguely reminiscent of colourful disco mirror balls. Most use a pair of long tentacles, armed with non-venomous sticky cells (colloblasts), to trap small prey and convey it to their mouth on the top of their body.

Ctenophores propel themselves using comb rows: beating hairs (cilia) organized into longitudinal bands. The presence, number and organization of these comb rows are taxonomically important. The single specimen of our fossil Daihuoides reveals a circular disk-shaped body (calyx), approximately six centimetres in diameter, with 18 radiating comb rows, each one distinguished by a clear zigzag pattern.

The presence of comb rows permitted us to identify this fossil as a ctenophore, but their high number was puzzling. This number is unusual in a living ctenophore, but rather common in very ancient Cambrian ctenophores. Cambrian comb jellies from the Chinese Chengjiang fauna, belonging to the genera Daihua, Xianguangia and Dinomischus, share a hexaradiate-based symmetry, meaning being six-fold or a multiple thereof, such as 18-fold.

Exceptional conditions

The fossil comb-jelly Daihuoides jakobvintheri, showing 18 radially-arranged comb rows. (Scientific Reports), Author provided

Our new fossil comes from the well-documented Devonian fossil site from Miguasha along the south coast of the Gaspé Peninsula in Eastern Canada.

It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site because it preserves an exceptional diversity of early fishes, including a transitional form between fishes and land vertebrates (tetrapods). This trove of fossils, known as the Escuminac assemblage, is 375 million years old — and was once an estuary near the equator!

Since 1842, more than 21,000 fossil fish belonging to 20 different species have been found. Many of these fossils represent near-complete skeletons with most bones still in place.

In contrast to the plethora of fishes, invertebrates are rare and less diverse. In fact, only 10 species have been found. Most of them only known from a handful of specimens, and are primarily arthropods (hard-bodied invertebrates with jointed legs, represented today by things such as crabs and insects).

The base of the tree of life

The Cambrian Explosion refers to the near-simultaneous appearance of the major groups of animals in the fossil record, between 540 and 520 million years ago.

Before then, animals were very simple and largely microscopic, but in the geological blink of an eye, most of the modern phyla of animals (metazoans) appeared, including arthropods, molluscs and vertebrates. Ctenophores have long been thought to be near the base of the animal tree of life, resembling other primitive forms such as cnidarians (corals and jellyfish). Sponges look primitive because they lack a nervous system and organized tissues, and they only have a few cell types.

Ctenophores and cnidarians, despite their relative simplicity, are much more complex than sponges, so it was traditionally assumed that sponges were at the absolute base of the animal family tree — the “sponges-first hypothesis.”

However, some recent genomic studies have proposed that comb jellies are actually even lower on the family tree than sponges, a “ctenophores-first” hypothesis. This radical idea remains highly controversial because sponges have been assumed to be more primitive than ctenophores for more than 150 years.

If true, it could mean that many of the traits ctenophores share with typical animals (such as a nervous system, gut and complex muscles) might have evolved twice: once in comb jellies and separately in all other animals.

Comb jellies would be true evolutionary aliens compared to all other animals.

In the light of our discovery, we tested whether the anatomy of fossil ctenophores better supports the sponges-first or ctenophores-first hypothesis. Surprisingly, and contrary to a previous study, the fossils were equally consistent with both ideas.

Lazarus fossil

According to the Bible, Jesus restored Lazarus of Bethany to life four days after his death. In paleontology, a “Lazarus taxon” is an organism that disappears from the fossil record for a lengthy period, only to reappear much later.

Reconstruction of a fossil ctenophore from the Cambrian Period, Ctenorhabdotus capulus, which is some 140 million years older than Daihuoides but still very similar. (Apokryltaros/Wikipedia), CC BY

Our new fossil ctenophore, Daihuoides, is a perfect example of such a Lazarus taxon and postdates its Cambrian relatives by over a hundred million years. Our creature resembles a primitive type of ctenophore with 18 sets of organs radially arranged. These forms were known from the Cambrian (over 500 million years ago) and then assumed to have gone extinct soon afterwards.

Daihuoides shows that these primitive comb jellies survived for a further 140 million years, into the Devonian, approximately 375 million years ago. This discovery demonstrates the huge gaps in the known fossil record, and implies many wonderful fossils are yet to be discovered.

Johanne Kerr, researcher at Parc national de Miguasha, co-authored this article.

Richard Cloutier, Professor of Evolutionary Biology, Université du Québec à Rimouski (UQAR); Christian Klug, Professor, Curator of the Palaentological Museum, University of Zurich, and Mike Lee, Professor in Evolutionary Biology (jointly appointed with South Australian Museum), Flinders University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

--

Header image: The bodies of comb jellies like Mertensia ovum are soft, meaning they rarely fossilize. (Alexander Semenov), CC BY-SA.

Read Also

We discovered a 115,000-year-old iguana nest fossil in the Bahamas

[peridots-pixiwolf]

oh boy I am memorizing Too Many Species Right Now!! Most of them are because I have bug characters

Here is all of the information I can gather directly from my mind right now:

(mentions of lots of arthropods and a cnidarian under the readmore!)

Sphecius convallis - the pacific cicada killer wasp, closely related to but not to be confused with the more well-known eastern cicada killer, in the same genus with the species name speciosus. It's a tannish-orange color with yellow and off white markings, primarily on its face and abdomen.

Parides montezuma - Montezuma's cattleheart, a black butterfly with bright red markings on the tips of its forewings and on its abdomen, grayish stripes also marking the latter.

Dynastes tityus - the eastern hercules beetle, one of the horned beetles in a dull greenish-yellow, with black freckles on the elytra, as well as a black elytral/prothoracal "margin", prothoracal horn and head. It has tan fur on the undersides of said horn, as well as thorax and abdomen. As with most (all?) horned beetles the horn is only present in males.

Apis mellifera - way too prevalent for me to forget ever, the western/european honeybee. This is the bee that is normally and widely domesticated for honey. It has a light brown head and thorax and (in workers) a yellowish and dark brown banded abdomen, and is one of the rare social species of bees. While western honeybee numbers are in fact decreasing, they aren't close to extinction and are competing with native bees, who ARE indeed endangered.

Polistes olivaceus - commonly referred to as the yellow paper wasp, yellow oriental paper wasp or Macao paper wasp. Yellow, with thin and numerous tan, brown or black bands all along its body.

Sphex pensylvanicus - the great black wasp, or great black digger wasp. It's pretty notable for being all-black with metallic, dark blue wings, and was probably first examined in Pensylvania, U.S. considering the species name but can be found in several places that are Not There in the country. I found a dead one on the side of the road and I put her in my house

Tachypompilus ferrugineus - The rusty spider wasp. It's one that preys on spiders (several? only one?), dragging it (them?) back to her nest to lay eggs on. I've already nerded out about this for a reason, because seeing a red wasp with metallic blue wings drag a wolf spider 2x her size across your front lawn into a hole of unknown depth is a memorable experience.

Polydrusus impressifrons - A weevil. It's sort of pale lime green, sparkling with yellows and darker greens in the elytra chitin, which notably to me is not smooth but rather has straight thin "valley"s carved through it from end to end? I'm sure there's a better word for it but I can't currently remember.

Pleurobrachia pileus - A jellyfish called a sea gooseberry along with the other member of its genus. ...It looks like a drop of water.

Myrmecocystus mexicanus - An ant in one of the genuses holding those known as honeypot ants, but it's not really said if the species itself is in fact one with modified honeypot workers, so I assume it probably isn't? Workers are a light golden-tan, with the head being a bit darker.

Cranjon cranjon - It's a thin light brown shrimp, that iirc is often caught for food. I just think the name is cool

Vespula maculifrons/germanica/vulgaris - three very similar-looking species of yellowjacket in the same genus, the former called the eastern yellowjacket and both the latter called european yellowjackets, though germanica is also called the german wasp while vulgaris is called the common wasp. They're basically what the average person thinks of when hearing the word wasp, with striking bands of black and yellow. They construct papery nests despite not being part of Polistes, and I can't exactly remember their differences currently? There's a tree in my area they were all swarming around about a week ago and I fed them italian ice before one was carried away and eaten mid-flight by a larger bald-faced hornet. Fun times.

I can't remember the scientific name of this one, but it is most commonly referred to as Avispa de caballo (Horse's wasp, not to be confused with horse guard wasp) and it bears close resemblance to cicada killers, due to them both being sand wasps.

Megaloblatta longipennis - one of, if not, the largest species of cockroach. I don't know why I remember this?

Lampyris noctiluca - a species of lampyrid beetle, of which is otherwise known as a firefly or lightning bug, or a glowworm for the larvae and the larviform adult females. The species is one of the most commonly seen fireflies, I believe?

Coenagrion puella - a damselfly species. The male imagos are blue, while the females are green or brown, and both have black abdominal bands and thoracic stripes. It's one of the species that folds its forelegs up near its head.

Strategus aloeus - the ox beetle. It's chestnut brown, with the males having one long forward-facing prothoracic horn and two smaller ones facing back. It doesn't have haired elytra like Pygopleurus, but the underside sure is fluffy!

And that's not even counting all the times I nerded out while writing this, like about how cockroaches are actually most related to termites and that taxon is the sister group of mantises, or how brush-footed butterflies (including monarchs!) do the same thing (as puella) with their reduced forelegs tucked up behind their head so they stand on fours, or how odonates have such large eyes and great vision that they catch their prey 90% of the time, being the most successful hunters, and can predict said prey's movement. Or counting the many nudibranchs I remember the appearances, but not the names, of in vivid detail

Anyway. Uh. Writing this felt way shorter than the time it took. Goodbye

[victoreli]

thanks for tagging me @butchcaroldanvers

name: call me e

gender: chaos

zodiac: we don’t do that in this house(I also )

height: 5'3

myers-brigger: what??

favourite animal: If lichens count then them otherwise cats and pleurobrachia

cats or dogs: cats

blanket you sleep with: cotton blanket which is the love of my life 

reason for url: favourite movie + otp

hopes for the future: not dying, some motivaition would be nice

when and why i made this blog: august 2019 I think, I was bored

tagging: @just-got-sherloki-d @sooraj-mukhi and everyone who wants to do this

[deeloveful]

making sure my response was accurate to the previous post I googled Pleurobrachia refraction - I have read before that they weren’t but I didn’t want to make the mistake of misinforming others.

I managed to find a well written study on the matter, detailing numerous experiments in easy to understand terms

the paragraph that I found best summarized their results was this (found at the end of their conclusion)

they mention another order of ctenophores that are rarely studied, which have never been reported as bioluminescent. I might look into Platyctenida after Pukiidae.

[mr-dirtlord]

mermaid based on Pleurobrachia bachei, a comb jelly known as a sea gooseberry 🥺