Physalia

Habit and habitat: Physalia is a marine, colonial, swimming or floating

pelagic animal.
Distribution: Physalia is found in tropical and subtropical seas.
Comments:
●​ Physalia is a colonial hydroid commonly known as Portuguese
man of war.
●​ Colony has a large pneumatophore or float which is brilliantly
coloured as blue or purple.
●​ The float or pneumatophore is bladder-like, elongated and pointed
at both the ends, 6 to 12 cm long. The upper surface of the float is
produced into a crest or sail.
●​ A gas gland present inside the float secretes a gas of a
composition similar to air. This helps the animal in floating over the
surface of water.
●​ The swimming bells or nectocalyces are absent.
●​ Colony exhibits remarkable polymorphism and the phenomenon of
division of labour.
●​ Beneath the float are hanging down the three types of zooids and
tentacles.
(i) Gastrozooids are simple polyps with mouth but without
tentacles. These are nutritive in function.
(ii) Dactylozooids are of two types, large as well as small. These
are provided with tentacles bearing numerous nematocysts. These
catch the fishes and other prey, etc.
(iii) Gonozooids are branching blastostyles bear clusters of
medusae. Male medusae are reduced and remain attached.
Female medusae are free-swimming.
●​ Tentacles are large and bear stinging batteries or nematocysts to
kill the large fishes and prey.
 Millepora

Habit and habitat: Millepora is colonial, marine, commonly found

throughout tropical seas in shallow waters.
Distribution: Millepora is found in West Indies and U.S.A.
Comments:
●​ Millepora is a colonial hydroid coral.
●​ Colony consists of upright leaf-like or branching calcareous
growths up to 30-60 cm in height or calcareous encrustations over
corals or other objects. It is white or yellowish in colour.
●​ The skeleton is calcareous secreted by ectoderm, never by
perisarc.
●​ The surface of the colony bears pores of two sizes, the larger
gastropores and the smaller dactylopores.
●​ Colony has two kinds of zooids:
i. Gastrozooids are shorter having mouth and tentacles. These
protrude through gastropores and are nutritive in function.
ii. Dactylozooids are longer, slender, hollow with capitate
tentacles and without mouth. These are enclosed in dactylopores
and are protective in function.
●​ Medusae are budded off from coenosarc in special rounded
chambers of the calcareous mass called ampullae.
●​ Medusae have no mouth or tentacles or radial canals and are
short lived.
●​ Dried colony forms irregular mass.
 Obelia

Habit and habitat: Obelia is a colonial, marine, sedentary hydrozoan

zoophyte found attached on piles, rocks and sea weeds in shallow water.
Distribution: Obelia is found from Arctic region to the Gulf of Mexico
and the Pacific Coast, and from Southern California to Oregon.
Comments:
●​ Obelia is a colonial hydroid.
●​ It is trimorphic colony in the form of small sea weed filaments,
measuring several centimetres in height. The filaments maybe
horizontal and vertical.
●​ The colony consists of a basal horizontal portion, the hydrorhiza
which is attached with the substratum and a number of vertical
branches known as hydrocauli arising from hydrorhiza.
●​ The hydrorhiza and hydrocauli are covered by a chitinous perisarc
which encloses soft inner coenosarc.
●​ The colony is trimorphic having three types of zooids, e.g.,
hydranth, blastostyle and medusa.
●​ Hydranth or polyp has a cylindrical body attached to the axis of the
hydrocaulus by its proximal end and free at its distal end. It is
covered by cup shaped hydrotheca. The hypostome is surrounded
by a number of solid tentacles provided with nematocysts. It is a
nutritive zooid of the colony.
●​ Blastostyle or reproductive zooid is club-shaped without mouth and
tentacles. It is enclosed by a covering, gonotheca. It gives rise to
buds which later become flattened and develop into small
medusae.
●​ Medusa is bell-shaped with a concave and a convex side. It is
provided with marginal tentacles, four radial canals, a ring canal,
four gonads borne on the radial canals and a hanging central
manubrium on the concave side. The medusae are free-
swimming.
●​ Life history of Obelia exhibits an alternation of generation.
 Pennatula

Habit and habitat: Pennatula is a sedentary and colonial Anthozoa.

Distribution: Pennatula is found fixed in the mud in deep waters of
South Carolina.
Comments:
●​ Pennatula is commonly called sea pen or sea feather.
●​ Colony is elongated and bilaterally symmetrical divisible into two
parts, the stalk and the rachis.
●​ The proximal or basal part is called the stalk or peduncle
embedded in the mud or sand. It is devoid of zooids.
●​ The distal or upper part is called the rachis, bears rows of laterally
fleshy projections known as leaves or pinnules.
●​ Colony is dimorphic having two kinds of zooids:
i) Autozooids or anthocodia have tentacles and gonads and
nutritive in function. They are borne in a single row on each
pinnule or leaf.
ii) Siphonozooids have no tentacles and gonads but have larger
siphonoglyphs and serve to maintain a current of water in canal
system of colony. They are situated on the dorsal side of rachis.
●​ Skeleton consists of a long horny unbranched axis which supports
the rachis and does not extend into lateral pinnules.
●​ Sexes are separate (dimorphic) and gametes develop in
gastrozooids.
●​ Pennatula grandis is about 50 cm in length. It is orange in colour.
 Gorgonia

Habit and habitat: Gorgonia is a marine, colonial and shallow water

Anthozoa. It is found along tropical and sub-tropical shores on the rocks.
Distribution: Found in Indo-Pacific Ocean, especially in the Malay
Archipelago, but are also common in the subtropical Atlantic-Bermuda,
West Indies and Bahamas, etc.
Comments:
●​ Gorgonia is commonly known as sea fan.
●​ The colony is yellowish or reddish in colour and consists of plant
-like branching stems and a short main trunk attached to the
substratum by a pedal disc.
●​ The colony branches only in one plane in a feathery manner. The
branches are united to one another by cross connections, a type
called sea fan.
●​ The base of the colony is expanded to form a hold fast or
attachment organ.
●​ Numerous small anthocodia (retractile polyps) are found in rows
on two sides of stems and branches.
●​ Skeleton consists of an axial rod which extends throughout the
colony and branches.
●​ Axial rod is made up of a flexible horn-like material, gorgonin which
is ectodermal in origin.
●​ Gorgonia also contains numerous spicules in the mesogloea of the
coenosarc.
 Corallium

Habit and habitat: Corallium is a colonial, marine Anthozoa.

Distribution: It inhabits bottom chiefly in the Mediterranean and off
coast of Japan at depths of 30-200 metres.
Comments:
●​ Corallium is commonly known as red coral.
●​ Colony is branched upright vertically and reaches up to 30 cm in
height.
●​ Skeleton consists of separate spicules embedded in a cement-like
deposit of calcium carbonate resulting in the formation of an
extremely hard and dense branched axial rod.
●​ The axial rod which is formed of red lime stone extends as an axis
throughout the colony.
●​ Gorgonin is entirely absent.
●​ The colony is dimorphic. The axis is covered by coenenchyme on
which two kinds of zooids are borne. The zooids are white and
retractile.
Autozooids are nutritive zooids bear tentacles.
Siphonozooids have no tentacles but contain large cilia in a
groove which maintain the current of water.
●​ It is viviparous because the planula larva develops inside the
zooid.
●​ Corallium rubrum is a precious red coral of commerce that has
been used widely in jewellery. It is also known as red moonga.
 Aurelia

Habit and habitat: Aurelia is a solitary, marine jelly-fish.

Distribution: Aurelia is found in coastal waters of all oceans of the
world.
Comments:
●​ Aurelia is the commonest jelly-fish.
●​ The medusa is bowl or saucer-shaped having tetramerous radial
symmetry, measuring about 7.5–10 cm in diameter.
●​ The medusa or umbrella has a slightly convex upper surface
known as exumbrellar surface and a lower concave, the
subumbrellar surface.
●​ The margin of the umbrella is divided into eight lobes or lappets by
notches. Each notch contains a tentaculocyst or rhopalium
enclosed by a pair of marginal lappets.
●​ Numerous short, hollow tentacles are present all round along the
margin of the umbrella and are known as marginal tentacles.
●​ The mouth is four-cornered situated on the short manubrium,
which hangs down in the centre of subumbrellar surface.
●​ Each corner of the mouth is drawn out into a long frilled, tapering
process, the oral arm. The four oral arms lie along the four per
radii.
●​ Mouth leads into short gullet which opens into stomach. The
stomach gives rise to four inter-radial gastric pouches.
●​ Each gastric pouch gives off branched or unbranched radial canals
which open into a circular canal situated along the margin of the
umbrella.
●​ On the subumbrellar surface lying between the oral arms are four
rounded apertures leading into shallow pouches called subgenital
pits.
●​ It is unisexual. The four gonads (testes or ovaries) lie on the floor
of the gastric pouches. Gonads are horse-shoe-shaped and
reddish in colour.
●​ The gametes (sperms or ova) are discharged into the stomach and
passed out through the mouth.
●​ The fertilized ovum develops into a free-swimming planula, and
finally into fixed scyphistoma which gives rise to adult by
transverse fission.