Here are some zooplankton you
wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley! First up is Phronima sp. – a hyperiid amphipod that is said to the be the
inspiration for the creature from the Alien movies. Females burrow into the
bodies of unfortunate gelatinous zooplankton (like salps and jellyfish) to make
a cozy home, then lay their eggs inside of the corpse. These creatures sound
like they are straight out of a horror movie, but luckily for us they are only about
the size of a quarter.
Photo 1: Phronima sp. captured in the 505 µm Bongo net. Photo credit:
Caitlin Smoot.
Next up is a predatory
copepod called Paraeuchaeta. The
animals pictured below are around the size of a grain of rice. They prey on
other copepods, but can prey on fish eggs too. We were lucky enough to collect
female and male specimens in our 150 µm Bongo net. The male (bottom) uses his
specialized fifth pair of swimming legs to transfer a sperm packet, or spermatophore,
to the female’s genital segment in order to fertilize her eggs. The female from
our net (top) has a spermatophore attached to her genital segment.
Photo 2: Female and male copepods (Paraeuchaeta sp.) collected in the 150 µm Bongo net. Photo credit:
Caitlin Smoot.
Check out this link to the Plankton Chronicles for a great
video of Phronima in action: http://www.planktonchronicles.org/en/episode/phronima-monsters-in-barrels
Until next time…be glad you’re not a salp!
-Caitlin
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