Table of Contents
What is the life span of a sea pen?
100 years old
Sea pens are a type of octocoral, or soft coral, which are related to jellyfish and anemones. They may not get as much love as their glamorous cousins, the reef-building hard corals, but sea pens are fascinating creatures that can live to be 100 years old, glow in the dark and live in the soft sediments of Puget Sound.
How do sea pens survive?
Each sea pen is a colony of polyps (small anemonelike individuals) working together for the survival of the whole. Some polyps feed by using nematocysts to catch plankton; some polyps reproduce; and some force water in and out of canals that ventilate the colony.
How big do sea pens grow?
Sea pens grow to be about 46 cm high and 102 mm wide. They consist of 20 pairs of flat, wide side branches with rows of polyps along both edges.
Are sea pen endangered?
Not extinct
Sea pen/Extinction status
Where do sea pens live?
temperate waters
Sea pens have a cosmopolitan distribution, being found in tropical and temperate waters worldwide, as well as from the intertidal to depths of more than 6100 m. Sea pens are grouped with the octocorals, together with sea whips (gorgonians).
Why is sea pen important?
As a consequence, sea pens are regarded as an important indicator of the quality of mud habitats and associated communities (Macdonald et al., 1996), relevant to environmental legislation such as the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD; 2008/56/EC).
Can sea pens move?
Sea pens are adapted for life on soft sea bottoms. Here, they can dig into the ground for support. They retract completely into the soft ground when alarmed or at low tide. It is said that they can move along the bottom by looping their bodies.
What ocean do sea pens live in?
Sea pen, any of the 300 species of the order Pennatulacea, colonial invertebrate marine animals of the class Anthozoa (phylum Cnidaria). The name sea pen derives from their resemblance to quill pens. They occur in shallow and deep waters from polar seas to the tropics.
Is Gorgonia a medusa or polyp?
sea fan, (genus Gorgonia), any member of a genus of invertebrate marine animals of the suborder Holaxonia (class Anthozoa, phylum Cnidaria). It is a variety of coral composed of numerous polyps—cylindrical sessile (attached) forms—that grow together in a flat fanlike pattern.
Are sea pens alive?
Sea pens have a cosmopolitan distribution, being found in tropical and temperate waters worldwide, as well as from the intertidal to depths of more than 6100 m….Sea pen.
| Sea pen Temporal range: | |
|---|---|
| Class: | Anthozoa |
| Subclass: | Octocorallia |
| Order: | Pennatulacea Verrill, 1865 |
| Families |
What eats a sea pen?
Their major predators are nudibranchs and sea stars, some of which feed exclusively on sea pens. During the daylight hours Sea Pens usually bury themselves into the sand, and come out at night to capture plankton.
What do sea pens eat?
plankton
Sea pens are filter feeders, their special feeding polyps – called autozooids – have 8 tentacles that they use to catch plankton and other particles of food from the surrounding water. There are 3 types of sea pen found in UK seas, including the beautiful phosphorescent sea pen.
What do polyps look like in a sea pen?
The sea pen is not actually one animal, but rather consists of many separate animals called polyps living in a colony. The polyps look look like miniature sea anemones each with eight tentacles.
How many species of sea pens are there?
The sea pen is not actually one animal, but rather consists of many separate animals called polyps living in a colony. The polyps look look like miniature sea anemones each with eight tentacles. There are around 300 species of Sea Pens or Sea Pansies.
When does a sea pen reach sexual maturity?
Sea pens reach sexual maturity between four and six years of age. You can estimate the age of a sea pen by looking at its height and size. Each individual sea pen, or colony, is typically either male or female but there are reports of a few hermaphroditic colonies in which each individual is both male and female.
What makes up the stalk of a sea pen?
Each sea pen is a colony of polyps (small anemonelike individuals) working together for the survival of the whole. The primary polyp loses its tentacles and becomes the stalk of the sea pen, with a bulb at its base — the bulb anchors the sea pen in the muddy or sandy bottom.