DEEP-SEA PAGES:
BATHYAL and ABYSSAL CNIDARIA and Porifera

Paul H. Yancey, Whitman College
Return to my MAIN DEEP-SEA PAGE for details on animal collection and for TOPIC CONTENTS (or use pull-down menu, below right).
If you copy and use photos, please WRITE for PERMISSION first at email just below. Some of these photos are mine, others are ones I took from the ROV Oceanic Explorer's camera monitor.

If you can help us identify species with a *, please contact me at the email just above.
Note: many of the specimens have been deposited at the Field Museum in Chicago and loans of the material can be arranged through Janet Voight (voight@fmnh.org) or John Slapcinsky (Slapcin@fmnh.org)
OTHER TOPICS

 

Benthic Cnidaria (or Coelenterata) and Porifera
These are polyp animals in two large classes: hydras (hydrozoans), and anemones, corals and seapens (anthozoans); these are typically carnivores with tentacles having stinging cells (with nematocysts or capsules with barbed threads). (Note there are also planktonic cnidaria--cubozoans and scyphozoans or jellies--not shown here). Seapens (colonies of tiny polyps) sit vertically with a fleshy stalk in the mud;they often have a brittle star on them that is up in the current to catch detritus.
Porifera (sponges) typically filter-feed by drawing water in through small side pores, trapping food on collar cells, and exuding water out the large top opening.

**CLICK PICTURES FOR LARGER VERSIONS**
A. OREGON/WASHINGTON BATHYAL AND ABYSSAL -- (a) = abyssal plain (2300-2850m), (ob) = continental slope (1800-2000m) off Newport, Oregon
anemone anemone2 anemone4anemone3 sponge coral
Anemone1
(ob)*
Anemone2
(a)*
Anemone Actinauge
abyssorum (a,ob)
(1800-5200m)
on wood, and on tubeworm
Paradiopatra sp
Octocoral Umbellula (a)
Silica sponge/anemone (a)
Hyalonema sp.
White anemone (a)
Coral2 (ob)*
hydroid?
Coral (ob)*
--hydroid?
Unknown anemone from near Juan de Fuca Ridge (2300m)

Those with "*" are ones we haven't identified at the species level. The "silica sponge/anemone" has long glass fibers made by filter-feeding sponges (Porifera) for anchoring in the mud, but the body appears to be an anemone growing where the sponge should be.

 

B. CALIFORNIA/OREGON BATHYAL-- Calif. slope off Eureka (510-525m) and Oregon Hydrate Ridge (600m) off Newport (Alvin and ROV video images)



Goiter sponge Heterochone calyx

Seapens*
with brittle stars
The deepsea mushroom coral Anthomastus ritteri (anthozoan colony, relative of corals, anemones, seapens; looks like toadstool when withdrawn)--lives 200-1500 m deep. Underwater photos are ROV and Alvin pictures; the 2nd photo I took off collected specimens; all are from Eel River Seeps off Eureka Calif, 510-520m. Righthand picture I took at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute; see the related aquarium website info page on this weird animal. See Seeps&Vents page for more submersible images
 Unidentified anemones from Calif. (520m) and Oregon (600m) sites.
Amazing sponges (*; 70-1100m) seen while exploring new territory at 520m with ROV, 4/2001
Good reference books:
Deep-Sea Biology by J.D. Gage & P.A. Taylor, Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Abyss by C.P. Idyll, Crowell Co., 1971