Creature 321: Anthopleura elegantissima

Racist anemones

Anthopleura elegantissima is an anemone commonly known as a clonal anemone.

Most cnidarians are capable of cloning themselves,  but these guys do it prolifically.  They raise an army of super aggressive clones which destroy any other anemones they come across. They can reproduce sexually, but their offspring are carried by the currents far away to form new colonies.

Clonal anemones have a symbiotic relationship with certain algae. The anemone provides carbon dioxide and protection while the algae provides oxygen and sugars.

Distribution:
The clonal anemone can be found on the west coast of North America.

Classification:
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Cnidaria
Class: Anthozoa
Order: Actiniaria
Family: Actiniidae
Genus: Anthopleura
Species: Anthopleura elegantissima

Image Links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aggregating_anemone

http://baynature.org/2013/01/02/kehoe-marsh-and-mcclures-beach-in-winter/

Creature 298: Polypodium hydriforme

Weirdest parasite ever.

Polypodium hydriforme is a freshwater animal in the jellyfish group (Cnidaria) although this classification is not universally accepted.

There are not many cnidarian parasites, which makes it sort of interesting in itself. What is even more interesting is that it is one of the only animals which is an endocellular parasite, meaning it lives inside the cells of other organisms. They infect fish eggs where they live most of their life.

While inside the fish eggs they go through many fairly normal Cnidarian stages of their lifecycle, except they are inside out. What do I mean? Their gastrointestinal wall is on the outside while their epidermal cells 'skin' is on the inside. They slowly digest the nutrients inside the fish eggs and eventually emerge. Once they emerge they start to bud and quickly form a Medusa body plan like what you would think of normally in a jellyfish. In this stage of their life cycle they can reproduce sexually and infect new fish.

Distribution:
Polypodium hydriforme can be found in North America, Europe and Northern Asia.

Classification:
Polypodium hydriforme is so weird it has its own genus and family and even class. It has not been allocated an order as there is really no point. Their position within the Cnidaria is not universally accepted as some zoologists place it closer to bilateria (if you're not familiar with bilateria think of them as mainstream animals. Insects, mammals, snails, earthworms etc...). They posses the stimging cells which are characteristic of the Phylum Cnidaria and the methods which I favor place them in the Cnidaria, but some other methods contradict this placement.
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Cnidaria
Class: Polypodiozoa
Order: see above
Family: Polypodiidae
Genus: Polypodium
Species: Polypodium hydriforme

Image Links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polypodium_hydriforme

Creature 257: Atolla wyvillei

Jellyfish with an alarm

Atolla wyvillei is a jellyfish which is commonly called the Atolla jellyfish. That is sort of cheating when it comes to common names because it is also the genus name.

These deep sea jellyfish look a little bit like an alien spacecraft. But the aliens must have put an alarm on it because when they are attacks the Atolla jellyfish will produce light in flashes on and off. It is believed that this behavior attracts even bigger predators who are likely to go after whatever is hunting the jellyfish.

Distribution:
Atolla jellyfish can be found in all the world's oceans at depths from 500 to 5000 meters.

Classification:
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Cnidaria
Class: Scyphozoa
Order: Coronatae
Family: Atollidae
Genus: Atolla
Species: Atolla wyvillei

Image Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atolla_jellyfish

http://deepseanews.com/2009/02/tgif-wallpaper-alert/

Creature 211: Actinoscyphia aurelia

An anemone that looks like a venus fly trap

Description:
Actinoscyphia aurelia is an anemone (try pronouncing that) which is known as the Venus fly trap anemone.  They look a bit like a venus fly trap.

Much like a venus fly trap their fleshy lobes shut in order to trap their prey inside. When they are threatened they release some sort of slime which glows in the dark. I know, that doesn't sound like a particularly great defense to me either. We're not really sure what this is supposed to accomplish,  but there are several hypotheses.

Distribution:
Venus fly trap anemones are found on the ocean floor at depths of over 1000 m in the Atlantic ocean, particularly the gulf of Mexico.

Classification:
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Cnidaria
Class: Anthozoa
Order: Actiniaria
Family: Actinoscyphiidae
Genus: Actinoscyphia
Species: Actinoscyphia aurelia

Image Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_flytrap_sea_anemone

http://animals.pawnation.com/features-venus-flytrap-sea-anemone-3621.html

Creature 152: Chironex fleckeri

This Jellyfish can kill you 60 times over

Description:
Chironex fleckeri is a type of box jellyfish known as sea wasps due to their excruciatingly painful sting.

Comparing them to wasps is understating their sting, because these nasty Cnidarians can deliver enough venom to kill a person within 3 minutes. There is apparently enough venom in one box jellyfish to kill an adult human 60 times over. It bears up to 60 tentacles which can reach 3 meters long each and is covered in literally millions of stinging cells which will be activated upon contact with your skin. They only hunt during the day. They probably recognize day from night with their clusters of light detecting organs which some people call eyes, however since they lack a brain it is unknown how information from these organs are translated into behavioral changes.

Before you freak out completely, I should point out that most of the time a sting from as sea wasp will only involve the tips of one or two of its tentacles and the pain will quickly warn you to get the hell out of there. Obviously the more venom they inject, the more chance they will kill you and you would need to get stung by more than the tip of a tentacle for it to be lethal. For most of the year sea wasps live in estuine waters and are anchored to the sea floor in what is known as a polyp phase and they only enter their mobile phase (medusa phase) for a few months. The predictable life cycle of the sea wasp makes it easy to avoid them if you want to and a light nylon swimsuit is enough to protect you from a sea wasp sting.

Distribution:

The medusa phase of Chironex fleckeri can be found in tropical waters from Northern Australia to Vietnam and the Philippines.

Classification:

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Cnidaria

Class: Cubozoa

Order: Chirodropida

Family: Chirodropoidae

Genus: Chironex

Species: Chironex fleckeri

Image Links:

https://exploreable.wordpress.com/2011/08/23/deadly-organism-of-the-fortnight-chironex-fleckeri/

http://lifeinthefastlane.com/box-jellyfish-chironex-fleckeri/

Creature 112: Faviidae

Undead corals

Description:

Faviidae is the name of a family of corals commonly referred to as brain corals. This name is derived because the shape of the animal along with the strongly wrinkled surface gives it the resemblance of a brain.

These weird looking corals are reef-building corals due to the calcium carbonate skeleton which they produce. Their behaviour conjures images of the undead just as much as their brain-like appearance. The head may look fairly passive during the day but at night they extend a multitude of tiny tentacles with stings. They use these to hunt small animals swimming or floating past. In at least some members of this family the tentacles are also used to attack neighbouring corals which may be competing for food or for space on a densely packed reef. During the day the tentacles are harmlessly stored in the wrinkles on the surface of their body and only sting defensively.

Brain corals can get quite large, reaching up to 1.8 m in height. Like the Hydra I talked about in an earlier post, there is no theoretical limit to how long they can live. Individual brain corals have been recorded to be up to 900 years old. In order to kill them you have to destroy the brain. Most of them are much more spectacularly coloured than the boring grey brain coloured specimens.

Distribution:

Faviidae are found in warm waters at shallow depths in all the worlds oceans.

Classification:

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Cnidaria

Class: Anthozoa

Order: Schleractinia

Family: Faviidae

Image Links:
http://shewalkssoftly.com/2008/12/06/brain-coral/
http://aquaviews.net/explore-the-blue/unraveling-brain-coral/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colpophyllia_natans#mediaviewer/File:Colpophyllia_natans_(Boulder_Brain_Coral)_entire_colony.jpg

Creature 75: Hydra

This animal is immortal

Today I am looking at a genus called Hydra, which may sound like a mythical creature, particularly when we start throwing words like immortal around, but I assure you they are 100% real.

Description:

Hydra are in the jellyfish group Cnidaria and like other members of the group they sting with cells called Cnidocytes.  They can usually expand in size to about 1 cm long. They have a tubular body small tentacles at one end and an adhesive foot at the other. They use their foot to attach themselves to substrates on which they remain sessile most of the time. They detach themselves and swim around when hunting. Their tentacles are densely covered in neurotoxin loaded cnidocytes. When hunting they grab their prey with their tentacles and deliver the neurotoxin which usually kills their prey quite quickly. While the neurotoxins are fairly potent they do not deliver enough to have an effect on humans. These are used to deadly effect when When conditions are good Hydra reproduce asexually by budding clones off their body. When conditions are unfavorable they grow gonads and begin reproducing sexually.

Like the Hydra of Greek mythology from which its name derives, the Hydra can regrow damaged body parts. They never age and their stem cells can go on renewing themselves indefinitely. These characteristics make the Hydra theoretically immortal. They can still be killed by damage like an elf in the Lord of the Rings, and they can be killed by disease or starvation but assuming favorable conditions a Hydra will go on living forever.

Distribution:

Hydra are one of the few freshwater Cnidarian groups. They live in freshwater ecosystems all over the world.

Classification:

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Cnidaria

Class: Hydrozoa

Order: Anthomedusa

Family: Hydridae

Genus: Hydra

Image Links:

http://scienceforkids.kidipede.com/biology/animals/sponges/hydra.htm

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hydras_(8).JPG

Creature 12: Nemopilema nomurai

The largest jellyfish in the world?

Description:
There is some confusion  as to which jellyfish is the larges in the world the two candidates being Nemopilema nomurai or Nomura's jellyfish and Cyanea capitata or the Lion's mane jellyfish. Nomura's jellyfish has a larger mass, while the lion's mane jellyfish is longer. Of these two features I would be more inclined to give the award to Nomura's jellyfish. It can group up to 2m in diameter and can weight up to 200kg.

 The jellyfish tend to swarm every few years due to factors that we don't fully understand. These swarms can be so large that other fisheries in the Yellow sea and the East China sea suffer severe reduction in catch numbers. Fortunately Nomura's jellyfish is also eaten, and can be a substitute form of revenue, even if it is not as profitable.

Distribution:
Nemopilema nomurai lives in the west pacific.

Classification:
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Cnidaria
Class: Schyphozoa
Order: Semaeostomeae
Family: Rhizostomatidae
Genus: Nemopilema
Species: nomurai 

Image Links:
http://environmental.lilithezine.com/Jellyfish-Swarms.html
http://mostlyopenocean.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/attack-of-jellyfish-swarm.html