Ctenophora

Light refracting off a

Mertensia ovum
Anatomy and morphology
 Ctenophores are generally colourless, but
they can have red, orange, or even black
colour in certain species

 The most common species are often only a

few centimetres long (exceptions : the genus
Cestum, which can reach up to one and a
half metres)
Anatomy and morphology
 A deep-sea species informally called the
“Tortugas Red” is bright red in colour,
presumably to absorb blue-light from its prey
and the environment

 It can give off light by means of

bioluminescence. Eurhamphaea vexilligera,
can give off an exudate of red ink which
glows blue in the dark, perhaps to dissuade
predators
Anatomy and morphology
 Ctenophora have an interesting form of
symmetry, with many bilateral components,
but a few asymmetrical structures such as
the anal pores near the statocyst and
sometimes the proportions of their auricles
(ciliated lobe-like structures)
Anatomy and morphology
 Ctenophorans are diploblastic (having only
two body layers). The body consists of two
transparent cell layers, which make up its
outer skin (ectoderm) and inner skin
(gastroderm)

 Cilia found in the canals of the digestive

system may serve to pump water in or out of
the mesogloea, when osmotic water pressure
changes, perhaps because the creature has
swum out of saline sea water into coastal
brackish water
Anatomy and morphology
 Ctenophores do not possess a specific
circulatory system, neither do they have any
organs for breathing; gas exchange and the
excretion of waste products of cell
metabolism such as ammonia occur over the
body's entire surface through simple diffusion.
Anatomy and morphology
 The body is pervaded by a simple net of
neurons without a 'brain'

 These nerves are concentrated around the

mouth, tentacles, 'combs' and statocysts and
are connected with the muscular cells found
in the mesogloea and the inner cellular layer
of the ectoderm
Statocysts
 Undescribed deep-
sea species with
tentacles and clearly
visible side-branches
(tentilla)
Statocysts
 The statocyst is a specialised system of the
ctenophore that serves as a balancing organ
and also controls its movement

 It can be found on the end of the body

opposite the oral opening and is formed by a
collection of a few hundred calcareous cells
balanced on four horizontal groups of
serpentine flagella, known as the statolith
Tentacles
 Two opposing retractable tentacles are used
to catch prey

 From these central tentacles branch

additional filaments called tentilla, which
unlike in Cnidaria do not contain stinging
cells, but colloblasts or "lasso cells“

 These cells burst open when prey comes in

contact with the tentacle. Sticky threads
released from each of the colloblasts will then
capture the food
Tentacles
 Beroe engulf gelatinous prey directly, and
others instead use their muscular mouth
lobes to catch food, with oral tentacles
serving a secondary entangling function
Regeneration
 Ctenophores are capable of extraordinary
regeneration
Movement
 Many Ctenophora simply let themselves drift
with the current

 Some varieties also flap their oral lobes

during escape swimming, while others move
by undulating their body or creeping like
flatworms
Distribution
 Although ctenophores are generally hardly
noticeable and their influence on an
ecosystem is ostensibly very low, they can
still do significant damage when they occur in
non-native waters

 The North Atlantic species Mnemiopsis leidyi

was brought by ships' ballast water into the
Black Sea and spread rapidly
Habitat
 All Ctenophora live in the sea, where they live
in depths of up to four kilometres

 The most well-known species live as plankton

in the ocean layers near the surface

 35 species live on the sea bed (taxon of

Platyctenida), due to their flattened forms
which more closely resemble slugs or
flatworms than jellyfish
Community Ecology
 Beroe sp. looking for food.
The mouth is on the left

 Ctenophora are predators

which use their tentacles
to catch plankton, larvae,
worms, crustaceans,
Cnidaria, other
Ctenophora, and
sometimes small fish
Community Ecology
 Among the species that prey on Ctenophora
are Cnidaria, sea turtles, various fish such as
chum salmon, mackerels and lumpfish,
seabirds and other ctenophora

 They are often infested with parasitic

crustaceans of the group Amphipoda
Life History
 Larva of Bolinopsis sp.

 Ctenophora reproduce
sexually, with the exception
of some species of the order
Platyctenida that reproduce
asexually
Life History
 Almost all ctenophores are hermaphroditic or
monoecious, possessing both male and
female reproductive organs, which lie directly
under the 'combs' near the small channels of
the mesogloea
Life History
 Ocyropsis is one genus with separate sexes,
when triggered by outside lighting conditions,
the gametes are discharged into the
surrounding water through small openings in
the ectoderm, the gonopores, where external
fertilisation takes place

 Self-fertilization is somewhat rare. The

platyctene Tjalfiella tristoma, is viviparous;
that is, the young grow in a brood chamber
Life History
 Beroe ovata, have a special method of
preventing polyspermy. After several sperm
pronuclei have entered the egg, the egg
pronucleus goes through a process where it
migrates around the cell and finally chooses
which sperm pronucleus it wants to fuse with,
rejecting others because of signals indicating
close relationship or lack of fitness
Life History
 After the fertilised eggs have divided twice,
the ctenophore's later radial body symmetry
has already been set

 They develop into a free-floating cydippid

state, which looks very similar between all
Ctenophora and sometimes is labeled as a
larva, although in many cases this already
represents a miniature version of what the
creature will grow up to be
Etymology and Taxonomic history
Alternative 1: Coelenterata
 Eumetazoa
 Bilateria
 Coelenterata
 Cnidaria
 Ctenophora
Alternative 2: Acrosomata
 Eumetazoa
 Cnidaria
 Acrosomata
 Bilateria
 Ctenophora