What are sea pansies?
Sea pans are fleshy, leaf colonies of marine organisms belonging to the family Renilla , which is in the same Cnidaria phylum as jellyfish and corals. In fact, a sea pansy are not a flower, but in fact they are a type of soft coral known as pennatulations. Sea pansies are considered aggregated organisms, which is a colony composed of many individuals.
Sea pansy colonies consist of stems made up of large organisms called primary polyps, which can have a diameter of up to 2 inches (5.08 cm). These primary polyps have a massive structure called a stem that extends from the bottom of the main colony. Swruncle plunges into the sand to anchor the sea pansies into the ocean bottom.
The body similar to the property that gives the marine pans is their name in fact formed by different types of smaller secondary polyps. Some of these secondary polyps are responsible for feeding the sea pages. These polyps of the feed spread over the sand and excrete the mucus to retainYtila of any small zooplankton and organic matter that embarks nearby. Each polyp feeds sends its food to a common digestive system, so the whole colony of the feast or starvation together.
Small white dots are located between the polyps of the feeding. These light spots are a specialized polyp that acts as a type of water pump or output valve that blows and inflates the entire colony. This is useful when the sea pages are endangered by a predator or stuck on the sand rod in tide.
sea pansies have stems that are red, blue or purple and dotted with brilliant white polyps. Sea pansies are strikingly bioluminescent when they touch or attack a predator. This bioluminescence is caused by a green fluorescent protein (GFP). This protein generates bright green waves of light that pulsate out of the contact point. These light impulses often helpHear dispersion predator.
These unusual creatures usually occur in warmer areas of the Pacific and Atlantic coast and are sometimes referred to as "Atlantic Coral". These organisms begin to begin life as planktonic larvae that all hatch from the same egg. All polyps are clones of each other. When the sea puff matures, it moves towards shallower sand flats using contractions of the entire colony. These organisms love to anchor in sand flats and often find themselves who live in the sand completely buried.