Sea Angel: Clione limacina (Phipps, 1774)
The most common naked pteropod of arctic waters
Size
- larvae ~ 0.15 mm
- Adults up to 4 cm
Color & Characteristics
- Barrel-shaped body with paddle-like lateral wings
- No external gills
- Tansparent body with orange-red colouration in the tail and horn-like mouth organs
- Tentacles and hooks deployed during feeding
- Reddish-brown visceral mass is seen through the body wall
- Several subspecies and forms recognized, with differing shell shape and differeing polar/subpolar distribution
Habitat
- Panarctic, bipolar and subpolar
- Epipelagic (shallow dwelling)
Feeding
- An active swimmerMucus nets are produced on foot-wings to trap phytoplankton and small particles
- Net is periodically eaten to acquire the food stuck to it
- Animals must regularly swim upward to offset their sinking
Life cycle
- protandrous hermaphrodite (males first, females later)
- mating involves cross-fertilization
- 30-40 eggs laid as oblong gelatinous egg strips (1 to 1.2 mm long)
- Newly hatched larvae have thimble-shaped shells and a ciliated velum aroudn mouth
- shell is soon cast off and while chaning to adult body form, 2 ciliated rings lost are visible mid-body and near the tail
- Generation times thought to be 1 year in the arctic and perhaps 2 per year in the subarctic
Page Author: Russ Hopcroft
Created: Jan 31, 2009
