''Rhabdopleura striata'' is a

sessile Sessility, or sessile, may refer to: * Sessility (motility), organisms which are not able to move about * Sessility (botany), flowers or leaves that grow directly from the stem or peduncle of a plant * Sessility (medicine), tumors and polyps that ...

hemichordate Hemichordata ( ) is a phylum which consists of triploblastic, eucoelomate, and bilaterally symmetrical marine deuterostome animals, generally considered the sister group of the echinoderms. They appear in the Lower or Middle Cambrian and incl ...

. It is a

suspension feeder Filter feeders are aquatic animals that acquire nutrients by feeding on organic matters, food particles or smaller organisms (bacteria, microalgae and zooplanktons) suspended in water, typically by having the water pass over or through a spec ...

that

secrete Secretion is the movement of material from one point to another, such as a secreted chemical substance from a cell or gland. In contrast, excretion is the removal of certain substances or waste products from a cell or organism. The classical mec ...

s tubes on the

ocean floor The seabed (also known as the seafloor, sea floor, ocean floor, and ocean bottom) is the bottom of the ocean. All floors of the ocean are known as seabeds. The structure of the seabed of the global ocean is governed by plate tectonics. Most of ...

. The

zooid A zooid or zoöid is an animal that is part of a colonial animal. This lifestyle has been adopted by animals from separate unrelated taxa. Zooids are multicellular; their structure is similar to that of other solitary animals. The zooids can ...

s are dark brown.

Distribution

''Rhabdopleura striata'' is known only from a single collection from coral reefs off the coast of northern

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

.Beli E, Aglieri G, Strano F, Maggioni D, Telford MJ, Piraino S, Cameron CB (2018) The zoogeography of extant rhabdopleurid hemichordates (Pterobranchia: Graptolithina), with a new species from the Mediterranean Sea. ''Invertebr Syst'' 32(1):100–110.

References

striata Animals described in 1909 Fauna of the Indian Ocean Invertebrates of Sri Lanka {{hemichordate-stub