Are you sitting down? Get comfy, this one’s a doozy:
• These are photos of salps—filter-feeding, gelatinous drifters. • Their scientific name is Thetys vagina. • Vagina salps come in two morphs: solitary (📸 1) and chains (📸 2) • Solitary salps produce the chains asexually—you can see a rope of clones—the stolon—forming in the salp’s “belly,” each small orb being the gut of one salp in the budding chain.
• Chains of the clonal individuals can be tens of feet long. The chain here was about 3 feet long. • The chains reproduce sexually, beginning life as females and producing eggs. • When the female chain has been fertilized by a male chain and the solitary salps produced, the female chain then becomes a male chain and will fertilize younger female chains.
• Known as “alternation of generations,” this type of reproductive strategy is thought to help salps explode in numbers when conditions are right. • Salps may be crucial to the carbon cycle and regulating the climate, as their poo pellets sink carbon into the deep sea.
• These photos were taken by local photographer Joe Platko along Cannery Row this week. Thanks Joe!
FAQ: • We know—supposedly they were named when “vagina” just meant “sheath” and not applied to anatomy yet but idk • “Thetys” refers to a Greek sea goddess. “Tethys” was Titan of fresh water.
• They don’t sting! They’re closer to fishes and people than to jellyfish!
This has been a public service announcement about the alternation of generations and sequential hermaphroditism in Thetys vagina salps. Thank you for reading. 🥃
wishwhale 