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If food is plentiful, they can eat 10 times their own weight per day. [78] While Beroe preys mainly on other ctenophores, other surface-water species prey on zooplankton (planktonic animals) ranging in size from the microscopic, including mollusc and fish larvae, to small adult crustaceans such as copepods , amphipods , and even krill .
Abyssal comb jelly (Beroe abyssicola) swimmingBeroe abyssicola is a ctenophore with a flexible, highly muscular body. Being a predator, B. abyssicola uses its muscular body along with its ctene rows to swim and capture its prey, and uses its wide mouth to swallow its prey whole. [2]
Mertensia ovum, also known as the Arctic comb jelly or sea nut, is a cydippid comb jelly or ctenophore first described as Beroe ovum by Johan Christian Fabricius in 1780. It is the only species in the genus Mertensia.
Pleurobrachia bachei is a member of the phylum Ctenophora and is commonly referred to as the Pacific sea gooseberry. These comb jellies are often mistaken for medusoid Cnidaria , but lack stinging cells .
Inside the mouths of beroid ctenophores, macrocilia are present and essential for feeding. Each macrocillium contains multiple axonemes that are surrounded by a common membrane with a distinct capping structure at the distal tip.
Beroe cucumis is a predator and mostly feeds on other comb jellies, particularly Bolinopsis infundibulum; these are pulled into the large mouth and swallowed whole. [3]The comb jelly Mnemiopsis leidyi is an invasive species originally native to the western Atlantic coastal waters that was introduced into the Black Sea in the 1980s, with deleterious results to the ecosystem.
This division, after provisional results of morphological and molecular studies, however, probably does not reflect the actual relationships within the ctenophores. The monophyly of Nuda is widely accepted, due to the complete lack of tentacles, and the presence of macrocilia as a common secondary feature, or synapomorphy .
Unlike cnidarians, Mnemiopsis does not sting. Their body comprises 97% water. They have a maximum body length of roughly 7–12 centimetres (3–5 in) and a diameter of 2.5 centimetres (1 in). It is euryoecious, tolerating a wide range of salinity (2 to 38 psu), temperature (2–32 °C or 36–90 °F), and water quality.