Hydrozoan

Description:

Animalia Kingdom Phylum: Cnidaria Class: Hydrozoa Order: Hydroida Family: Pennariidae Genre: Halocordyle Species (s): disticha This species forms colonies in the shape of a feather, with regular branching. The general color is light due to the whitish tone of the polyps, although the structure of the colony is beige or dark brown. They measure up to 25 centimeters in height. The polyps are oval and pear-shaped and widely spaced on the surface of the branches. They have a crown of between 10 and 18 filiform tentacles. With the stinging cells of these tentacles it catches the small plankton on which it feeds.

Habitat:

It inhabits shallow rocky edges, in areas of strong hydrodynamism, and cave entrances, well attached to the substrate. Island in mediterranean rocky area. Isla Plana (Murcia).

Notes:

Its life cycle has two reproductive phases, one asexual and the other sexual through free-living jellyfish, with external fertilization. In one day, the embryo transforms into a free-living planula larva, which can eventually attach to the substrate and be the origin of a new colony.