An organism on Caulerpa prolifera

December 19, 2003
From: Levent Cavas

Dear Sir,
I saw an interesting organism on Caulerpa prolifera in my aquarium. Some parts of fronds were destroyed by this organism.
Do you know what it is?
Best regards,

Levent Cavas
Research Assistant
Dokuz Eylul University
Department of Biochemistry
Kaynaklar Campus, Izmir
Turkey
http://people.deu.edu.tr/lcavas

lcavas@hotmail.com

Cavas, L., 2003 (Dec 19) An organism on Caulerpa prolifera. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/11713

Dear Levent,
I've had a look at your photos and I guess what you are interested in are the 'things' producing the long spiderweb-like threads in the water? If so, my only guess is that they are benthic ctenophores. I have a photo in the Forum of a tropical species in which the long threads are retracted. The threads are used to catch small planktonic animals.

If my guess is correct, then you should be able to poke one off the Caulerpa and have a look at it. Each animal should produce 2 threads. I'm not an expert on ctenophores so I could of course be quite wrong. I don't even know if benthic ctenophores occur in the Mediterranean. Let me know what you think
Cheers
Bill

Rudman, W.B., 2003 (Dec 19). Comment on An organism on Caulerpa prolifera by Levent Cavas. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/11713

Factsheet

Benthic ctenophores

Related messages

  1. Benthic ctenophores from Bali
    From: Supapong Areeprasertkul, October 27, 2008
  2. Benthic ctenophore from Bali
    From: Ovidiu, June 20, 2006
  3. Re: Aglajid eating a benthic ctenophore
    From: Brian Francisco, January 14, 2006
  4. Can you identify this one?
    From: Karen Christensen, January 12, 2006
  5. A benthic ctenophore from the Philippines
    From: Mabel Fang, February 24, 2004
  6. What is this 'red thing' on Halgerda?
    From: Valda Fraser, November 26, 1999

Show factsheet and all related messages