#meroplankton

[rubberhosetoons]

More doodles of my SBSP oc Nova Meroplankton because I’ve become obsessed with her.

She tends to sea sheep and can play the harp because I said so :)

[wormyorchids]

New zine landed! SEA BABIES explores cute sea creature life stages 🦀🪼🐡 snag it in my sh0p or sign up for my mailing list before the end of the month!!

This black and white minizine shows the lesser known life stages of some familiar sea creatures!! Many marine animals spend part of their li

[panthalassaunited]

Crustacean Megalopae are what get me through this Dark and Eldritch Universe...

[rubberhosetoons]

Marine snow

[marinerach]

yeah, I just really love plankton.

[biooceanography]

Microzooplakton!

[explosionsoflife]

In spring, as phytoplankton blooms begin to develop, zooplankton start multiplying. They follow the phytoplankton into the sunlit zone to feed. Most are herbivores that feed on phytoplankton; some are carnivores that hunt other zooplankton. Many are classed as meroplankton—the young of animals like crabs, lobsters, barnacles, and some fish—which have a planktonic larval stage and use the currents to spread. By taking advantage of the summer phytoplankton feast, they avoided competing for food with adults of their own kind. While plankton drift with the currents, many free-swimming animals (collectively called nekton) gather to feed on them: fish, squid, marine mammals, and turtles. These, in turn, are food for predatory fish and seabirds. Some larger animals, such as basking sharks, also feed on zooplankton and nekton.

Pictured are examples of meroplankton, such as a starfish, a sea urchin, and a sea cucumber in their larval stages.

[explosionsoflife]

These cute creatures that look oddly like royal headdresses are radiolarians. Radiolaria are holoplanktonic protozoa widely distributed in the oceans. They occur throughout the water column from near surface to hundreds of meters depth. As with many planktonic organisms, their abundance in a geographical region is related to quality of the water mass, including such variables as temperature, salinity, productivity, and available nutrients.

(learn more)