Named for their resemblance to old-fashioned quills, sea pens are colonies of polyps that inhabit the ocean floor! All of the polyps work together & each has a role to play. There are feeding polyps to catch plankton and polyps that circulate water to keep the colony ventilated.
American Museum of Natural History
@AMNH #ocean #marinecreatures #polyps
How #polyps of the moon #jellyfish repel viral attacks on their microbiome
https://phys.org/news/2024-04-polyps-moon-jellyfish-repel-viral.html
Marine #bacteriophages disturb the associated #microbiota of A. aurita with a recoverable effect on host morphology: Melissa Stante et al. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/microbiology/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2024.1356337/full
"In the polyp stage, they are attached to the seabed and use their tentacles to catch food from the water. On their surface are numerous #bacteria that form the #microbiome, which plays an important role in the fitness of the polyp"
