|
Neopetrosia Subtriangularis
''Neopetrosia subtriangularis'' is a species of marine petrosiid sponges native to the waters off Florida and the Caribbean Sea. They superficially resemble staghorn corals. Taxonomy ''Neopetrosia subtriangularis'' was originally described by the French naturalist Édouard Placide Duchassaing de Fontbressin in 1850 as ''Spongia subtriangularis''. It is classified under the genus '' Neopetrosia'' of the family Petrosiidae in the order Haplosclerida. Description ''Neopetrosia subtriangularis'' superficially resemble the staghorn coral (''Acropora cervicornis'') in appearance. They form clusters of interconnecting solid branches that tend to sprawl along the substrate (repent), though these branches may sometimes be solitary (arising from a flattened base) and erect. The branches are brown, beige, yellow or orange in coloration on the external surfaces, though they may possess a greenish tinge. Internal surfaces are tan to off-white in coloration. They are usually around long ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Édouard Placide Duchassaing De Fontbressin
Édouard Placide Duchassaing de Fontbressin (c. 1819 in Le Moule, Moule, Guadeloupe – 1873 in PĂ©rigueux) was a French naturalist. He is noted for his work in botany and spongiology. A native of Guadeloupe, he studied zoology, geology and medicine in Paris. Afterwards, he returned to Guadeloupe as a physician, spending his free time conducting research of the island's flora. Subsequently, he visited several other islands of the Antilles, eventually relocating as a physician to Santa Marta, Panama (1848), from where he studied the natural history of the isthmus, sending his plant specimens to Wilhelm Gerhard Walpers, a botanist in Berlin (these specimens later became the property of August Grisebach).JSTOR Global Plants biography Around 1850, he obtained a medical degree at Copenhagen, then settled in Saint Thomas, U.S. Vi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Haplosclerida
Haplosclerida is an order of demosponges. It contains the following families: * Calcifibrospongiidae Hartman, 1979 * Callyspongiidae de Laubenfels, 1936 * Chalinidae Gray, 1867 * Niphatidae Niphatidae is a family of demosponges in the order Haplosclerida, first described in 1980 by Rob van Soest. It contains the following genera: * ''Amphimedon (sponge), Amphimedon'' Duchassaing & Michelotti, 1864 * ''Cribrochalina'' Schmidt, 1870 ... Van Soest, 1980 * Petrosiidae Van Soest, 1980 * Phloeodictyidae Carter, 1882 References {{demosponge-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Synalpheus
''Synalpheus'' is a genus of snapping shrimp of the family Alpheidae, presently containing more than 160 species; new ones are described on a regular basis, and the exact number even of described species is disputed. Taxonomy Although the genus ''Zuzalpheus'' was proposed for ''S. gambarelloides'', ''S. brooksi'', and their closest relatives, this has not been adopted and is not considered a monophyletic clade within the genus ''Synalpheus''. Over 160 species are recognised in the genus ''Synalpheus''. For a complete listing, see List of ''Synalpheus'' species. Distribution In the narrower sense, ''Synalpheus'' occur in the eastern Pacific where they are most plentiful and probably originated, and to a lesser extent in the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean; the species placed in ''Zuzalpheus'' occur mainly in the western Atlantic where their lineage probably originated, and to a lesser extent in the eastern Atlantic and Indian Ocean, and the eastern Pacific. It may thus b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Snapping Shrimp
Alpheidae (also known as the snapping shrimp, pistol shrimp or alpheid shrimp) is a family within the shrimp infraorder Caridea characterized by having asymmetrical claws, the larger of which is typically capable of producing a loud snapping sound. The family is diverse and worldwide in distribution, consisting of about 1,119 species within 38 or more genera. The two most prominent genera are ''Alpheus'' and ''Synalpheus'', with species numbering well over 330 and 160, respectively. Most snapping shrimp dig burrows and are common inhabitants of coral reefs, submerged seagrass flats, and oyster reefs. While most genera and species are found in tropical and temperate coastal and marine waters, ''Betaeus'' inhabits cold seas and ''Potamalpheops'' has a cosmopolitan distribution including being found in freshwater caves in Mexico. When in colonies, the snapping shrimp can interfere with sonar and underwater communication. The shrimp are considered a major source of sound in the oce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eusocial
Eusociality ( Greek 'good' and social) is the highest level of organization of sociality. It is defined by the following characteristics: cooperative brood care (including care of offspring from other individuals), overlapping generations within a colony of adults, and a division of labor into reproductive and non-reproductive groups. The division of labor creates specialized behavioral groups within an animal society, sometimes called castes. Eusociality is distinguished from all other social systems because individuals of at least one caste usually lose the ability to perform behaviors characteristic of individuals in another caste. Eusocial colonies can be viewed as superorganisms. Eusociality has evolved among the insects, crustaceans, trematoda and mammals. It is most widespread in the Hymenoptera (ants, bees, and wasps) and in Isoptera (termites). A colony has caste differences: queens and reproductive males take the roles of the sole reproducers, while soldiers and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Host (biology)
In biology and medicine, a host is a larger organism that harbours a smaller organism; whether a parasite, parasitic, a mutualism (biology), mutualistic, or a commensalism, commensalist ''guest'' (symbiont). The guest is typically provided with nourishment and shelter. Examples include animals playing host to parasitic worms (e.g. nematodes), cell (biology), cells harbouring pathogenic (disease-causing) viruses, or a Fabaceae, bean plant hosting mutualistic (helpful) Rhizobia, nitrogen-fixing bacteria. More specifically in botany, a host plant supplies nutrient, food resources to micropredators, which have an evolutionarily stable strategy, evolutionarily stable relationship with their hosts similar to ectoparasitism. The host range is the collection of hosts that an organism can use as a partner. Symbiosis Symbiosis spans a wide variety of possible relationships between organisms, differing in their permanence and their effects on the two parties. If one of the partners in an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seagrass
Seagrasses are the only flowering plants which grow in marine (ocean), marine environments. There are about 60 species of fully marine seagrasses which belong to four Family (biology), families (Posidoniaceae, Zosteraceae, Hydrocharitaceae and Cymodoceaceae), all in the order Alismatales (in the clade of monocotyledons). Seagrasses evolved from terrestrial plants which recolonised the ocean 70 to 100 million years ago. The name ''seagrass'' stems from the many species with long and narrow Leaf, leaves, which grow by rhizome extension and often spread across large "Seagrass meadow, meadows" resembling grassland; many species superficially resemble terrestrial grasses of the family Poaceae. Like all autotrophic plants, seagrasses photosynthesize, in the submerged photic zone, and most occur in shallow and sheltered coastal waters anchored in sand or mud bottoms. Most species undergo submarine pollination and complete their life cycle underwater. While it was previously believed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reef
A reef is a ridge or shoal of rock, coral, or similar relatively stable material lying beneath the surface of a natural body of water. Many reefs result from natural, abiotic component, abiotic (non-living) processes such as deposition (geology), deposition of sand or wave erosion planning down rock outcrops. However, reefs such as the coral reefs of tropical waters are formed by biotic component, biotic (living) processes, dominated by corals and coralline algae. Artificial reefs, such as shipwrecks and other man-made underwater structures, may occur intentionally or as the result of an accident. These are sometimes designed to increase the physical complexity of featureless sand bottoms to attract a more diverse range of organisms. They provide shelter to various aquatic animals which help prevent extinction. Another reason reefs are put in place is for aquaculture, and fish farmers who are looking to improve their businesses sometimes invest in them. Reefs are often quite n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sponge Spicule
Spicules are structural elements found in most sponges. The meshing of many spicules serves as the sponge's skeleton and thus it provides structural support and potentially defense against predators. Sponge spicules are made of calcium carbonate or silica. Large spicules visible to the naked eye are referred to as megascleres or macroscleres, while smaller, microscopic ones are termed microscleres. The composition, size, and shape of spicules are major characters in sponge systematics and taxonomy. Overview Sponges are a species-rich clade of the earliest-diverging (most basal) animals. They are distributed globally, with diverse ecologies and functions, and a record spanning at least the entire Phanerozoic. Most sponges produce skeletons formed by spicules, structural elements that develop in a wide variety of sizes and three dimensional shapes. Among the four sub-clades of Porifera, three ( Demospongiae, Hexactinellida, and Homoscleromorpha) produce skeletons of am ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oscule
The osculum (: oscula) is an excretory structure in the living sponge, a large opening to the outside through which the current of water exits after passing through the spongocoel. Wastes diffuse into the water and the water is pumped through the osculum carrying away with it the sponge's wastes. Sponges pump large volumes of water: typically a volume of water equal to the sponge's body size is pumped every five seconds. The size of the osculum is regulated by contractile myocytes. Its size, in turn, is one of the factors which determines the amount of water flowing through the sponge Sponges or sea sponges are primarily marine invertebrates of the animal phylum Porifera (; meaning 'pore bearer'), a basal clade and a sister taxon of the diploblasts. They are sessile filter feeders that are bound to the seabed, and a .... It can be closed completely in response to excess silt in the water. References Sponge anatomy {{animal-anatomy-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bahamas
The Bahamas, officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an archipelagic and island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the Atlantic Ocean. It contains 97 per cent of the archipelago's land area and 88 per cent of its population. It comprises more than 3,000 islands, cays and islets in the Atlantic Ocean, and is located north of Cuba and north-west of the island of Hispaniola (split between the Dominican Republic and Haiti) and the Turks and Caicos Islands, southeast of the U.S. state of Florida and east of the Florida Keys. The capital and largest city is Nassau on the island of New Providence. The Royal Bahamas Defence Force describes the Bahamas' territory as encompassing of ocean space. The Bahama islands were inhabited by the Arawak and Lucayans, a branch of the Arawakan- speaking TaĂno, for many centuries. Christopher Columbus was the first European to see the islands, making his first landfall in the "New World" in 1492 when he landed on the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
