denise
10-27-2008, 09:30 PM
Sea Spiders (classified as Pycnogonids, from a Greek word meaning 'thick knee'), are small marine animals that look similar to very skinny land spiders. The 1,300 species are found worldwide in all oceans, and range in size from a millimeter to more than six feet across! Sea spiders are not actual spiders, and not even related to them, they are more closely related to insects. There have not been many scientific studies of sea spiders, so we do not know a lot about them.
Sea spiders have extremely long legs in contrast to their small body size. They usually have eight pairs of long, hinged walking legs (four pairs), but some species have five or six pairs. They are so small that they have no lungs, and each of their tiny muscles is made up of only a single cell! Their tiny heart beats quickly at 180 beats per minute, creating enough blood pressure to exchange gases by diffusion. Sea spiders use their long stilt like legs to walk along the bottom, or swim above it using an umbrella pulsing motion.
Most sea spiders are carnivorous and feed on sponges, worms and anemones using their specialized mouth called a proboscis. This is a long appendage that impales their prey, and sucks the juices from it into their gut, where it is digested. Different adult sea spiders have different food preferences, that depend on what the animals were fed as young!
Sea spiders are found from shallow waters to depths of more than 2 miles in the darkest of sea trenches. They are hard to spot as they are usually well camouflaged beneath the rocks, coral and seaweed.
http://www.scubadiver.cc/fishid/bob222.jpg
Sea Spider in Boynton Beach
Photo by Bob Rosell
Sea spiders have extremely long legs in contrast to their small body size. They usually have eight pairs of long, hinged walking legs (four pairs), but some species have five or six pairs. They are so small that they have no lungs, and each of their tiny muscles is made up of only a single cell! Their tiny heart beats quickly at 180 beats per minute, creating enough blood pressure to exchange gases by diffusion. Sea spiders use their long stilt like legs to walk along the bottom, or swim above it using an umbrella pulsing motion.
Most sea spiders are carnivorous and feed on sponges, worms and anemones using their specialized mouth called a proboscis. This is a long appendage that impales their prey, and sucks the juices from it into their gut, where it is digested. Different adult sea spiders have different food preferences, that depend on what the animals were fed as young!
Sea spiders are found from shallow waters to depths of more than 2 miles in the darkest of sea trenches. They are hard to spot as they are usually well camouflaged beneath the rocks, coral and seaweed.
http://www.scubadiver.cc/fishid/bob222.jpg
Sea Spider in Boynton Beach
Photo by Bob Rosell