![]() ![]() ![]() Imagining having a child, a few days later they have children of their own and all are identical. This is a B-movie horror plot if there ever was one. All of these larvae look the same as the original. All the species range in size from 108-405 micrometers and live interstitially (between grains of sediment in the ocean). In several species, the larvae can develop 4-12 larvae inside them. However, Loricefera were known since the 70′s but because of there complex life cycle with a larva (Higgins-larva) that looks completely different from the adults, things got delayed. To say the reproductive life cycle of these groups complex or just plain freaky would be an understatement. The Loriciferans were first described in 1983 and since then around 20 species were described with at least 80 species waiting in the wings for their official names. Loricerfa and Cycliophora-What does gender even mean? Let’s do away with traditional moms and dads! This begins with the disintegration of that pesky penis.ģ. When the female dies, the next male in the stack will become the new female. Each male in turn will stretch their muscular penises down to the female for a little internal copulation. Other larvae will land on her back and become males. She will be the larger one on the bottom of a Crepidula sex stack. The first larvae to settle will be a female. During the same course of life, this limpet will change sex from male to female. Common Slipper Shell ( Crepidula fornicata)-Gender SwitchingĬrepidula is a sequential hermaphrodite. Depending on the species, males can give birth from 5 to 2,500 young.Ģ. Using muscular contractions of the brood pouch, the male will birth the young seahorses. Gestation can last anywhere from 2-4 weeks. The fertilized eggs will eventually become embedded in the pouch wall and surrounded by spongy tissue. She does this deed with her ovipositor, an appendage for egg laying just like the one of the Alien Queen in Aliens. The female, feeling very bad about the emptiness, will then deposit eggs into the pouch. During mating, the male will pump seawater into the pouch to expand and reveal its sad emptiness to the courting female. Male seahorses possess a pouch on their frontside, similar to kangaroos. Presumably, its entire body flashing with light scares away its enemies.Th example might be an obvious one but worth the mention. The ultimate biolumiscent defence mechanism has to be the show created by the deep sea jellyfish periphylla. Spinning confused in the water, the ostracod chases after the flashes and the copepods slip away unseen into the darkness. But some copepods discharge packets of bioluminescent liquid whose flashes are delayed and go off like depth charges, confusing the ostracod as to their whereabouts. Copepods are a favourite prey and it actively searches for their flashes in the darkness. It's the size of a pea, but that's enormous for an ostracod. The most sensitive eyes in the deep sea belong to an ostracod called gigantocypris. ![]() Other prey animals such as copepods have developed tactics to use bright or flashing lights to communicate with one another and confuse their predators, allowing them precious moments to get away unharmed. A shrimp senses a threat and spins in the water, releasing a bioluminescent glue that startles the fish and leaving it illumiated in the dark and vulnerable to its own predators. Bioluminescence is useful as an escape strategy as well as for attack. ![]()
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