salp
1
9.9
- noun
- /sælp/
- Specialized
- By fashioning their bodies into pulsating tubes, the salps are able, each day, to filter half the water column they inhabit, drawing out the phytoplankton and smaller zooplankton for food.
Examples
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Filter-feeding chordate jellyfishes known as "salps" dominate the North Pacific subtropical gyre.
Academic text (2003) -
The zooplankton include chordate jellyfishes known as "salps," which are among the fastest-growing multicellular organisms on the planet.
Academic text (2003) -
But salps are gelatinous creatures with a low biomass, and so there is no market for them either.
Academic text (2003) -
Out there in the deep, there's salp and jellyfish, whose vertical migrations are equivalent in scale to... to us, as if these birds were just to fly up from the trees, and go straight up into space.
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Investigators aboard the research vessel Alguita observed salps in the gyre, such as the one shown here, with brightly colored plastic fragments in their bellies.
Academic text (2003) -
Thus, an astronomical number of vectors for some of the most toxic pollutants known are being released into an ecosystem dominated by the most efficient natural vacuum cleaners nature ever invented: the jellies and salps living in the ocean.
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Salps are fascinating animals that move through the ocean by pumping water through their salp bodies.
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During scientific research, we observed how salps can efficiently filter food from the water using their unique physiological structure.
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In the open ocean, salps play a significant role in the marine food web by feeding on phytoplankton and serving as a food source for larger creatures.
Synonyms
A small soft sea animal shaped like a tube that floats near the surface and is almost clear
Surface Forms
Etymology
The word salp comes from the scientific name Salpa, which itself comes from an old Greek word meaning 'a sea creature'. So, the simple name fits this small, clear, barrel-shaped animal that moves by pumping water through its body.