A Ball with Bristles and Sticky Tentacles - The Sea Gooseberry

Animals that live their lives drifting in the sea are called holoplankton. The sea gooseberry (also somtimes called the cat's eye) Pleurobrachia is one such animal. It belongs to the Phylum Ctenophora, a group with a relatively primitive body plan, somewhat like jellyfish. But unlike jellyfish, ctenophores have no stinging cells.

While jellyfish swim by pulsing their bodies (like a toilet plunger?), ctenophores swim by paddling with short paddle-like structures in rows, that appear in Pleurobrachia like lines of longitude on a globe. These rows are made of short hair-like structures (cilia) fused together. The rows appear like combs, and thus the name for the group „comb jellies, a translation of the phylum name - ctene, meaning „comb and phore, meaning „bearning -- "comb bearning".

Sea gooseberries capture their food with two sticky tentacles that expand outward into an elaborate net when the animal is relaxed. Once it has captured some food it spins like a rolling ball. This draws the tentacle across the mouth (on top of the sphere, opposite the tentacles), where it is plucked from the sticky tentacle.