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Sea gooseberry
Pleurobrachia spp.
Sea gooseberries use their two long, trailing tentacles to fish for prey. Their bodies are virtually transparent and rows of tiny cilia catch the light, producing rainbow-like colours.
Subspecies
Sea gooseberries are a member of the phylum Ctenophora, or comb jellies, with around 90 species.
Life span
They are short-lived, around 4-6 months.
Statistics
Most are small, from 3mm (1/8in) in diameter to 15mm.
Physical Description
They have a gelatinous, transparent roughly spherical body composed of 99 per cent water. They are comb jellies and have eight rows of comblike plates consisting of thousands of fused cilia along their sides. The tentacles have no stinging cells.
Eight branches from the stomach are visible through its transparent body and there are several anal pores.
Two long extensile, branched tentacles protrude from pouches on the sides. The tentacles are armed with colloblasts, special cells that have sticky heads which ensnare prey.
Their bluish-white luminescence sometimes colours the waves at night.
Distribution
They occur worldwide.
Habitat
They are found from shallow waters to considerable depth.
Diet
They feed on other small planktonic animals such as arrow worms.
Reproduction
Sea gooseberries are wholly planktonic in their life cycle, lacking any sessile (attached) stages.
Conservation status
They are not considered threatened.
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