Ctenophora are exclusively free swimming animals that are biradially symmetrical, the body axis is oral-aboral. The body wall consists of an ectoderm and an entoderm, separated by a cellular mesenchyme giving the body a gelatinous appearance; usually transparent. The body bears eight meridional rows of ciliary plates (ctenes or combs) at some stage of the life cycle; the unique apical statocyst controls the occilation of the cilia, which facilitates the locomotion of the animal. The digestive tract comprises of a stomach and a biradial canal system with a single opening functioning as mouth. Ctenophores do not have cnidae (as in the Cnidaria) but many have a pair of long retractile tentacles, which can catch prey by means of sticky colloblasts. Most ctenophores are hermaphroditic, capable of self-fertilisation; typically with a cydippid larval stage. The development is monomorphic.

Ecology
Ctenophora are strictly marine; most species are pelagic and then holoplanktonic, but some have secondarily developed a benthic but non-sessile way of life.

The key to the ctenophore species of the North Saa plankton starts at Page 392: Ctenophora.

[After Brusca and Brusca, 1990; Hayward and Ryland, 1995]


The following species of Ctenophora are included in the present volume:

Class Tentaculata
Order Cydippida
Family Pleurobrachiidae
Pleurobrachia pileus
Order Lobata
Family Bolinopsidae
Bolinopsis infundibulum
Class Nuda
Order Beroida
Family Beroidae
Beroe gracilis
Beroe cucumis

Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Ctenophora

Sorry, there are no scientific synonyms and common names available for this taxon

Brusca, R.C. and G.J. Brusca, 1990. Invertebrates. Sinauer Associates Inc., Sunderland, U.S.A. 922 pp.

Greve, W., 1975. Ctenophora. Fiches d'Identification du Zooplancton 146. Conseil International pour l'Exploration de la Mer, Kopenhagen.

Hansson, H.G., 1998a. NEAT (North East Atlantic Taxa): South Scandinavian marine Cnidaria and Ctenophora checklist. Internet PDF Edition, August 1998. [www.tmbl.gu.se]

Hayward, P.J. and J.S. Ryland, 1995. Handbook of the Marine Fauna of North-West Europe. Oxford University Press, Oxford. 800pp.

Liley, R., 1958. Ctenophora. Fiches d'Identification du Zooplancton 82. Conseil International pour l'Exploration de la Mer, Kopenhagen.

Vanhöffen, E., 1903. Ctenophoren. Nordisches Plankton, 6(11): 1-7. Lipsius & Tischer, Kiel. (Reprint Asher & Co., Amsterdam, 1964).

Williams, R. and N.R. Collins, 1985. Chaetognaths and ctenophores in the holoplankton of the Bristol Channel. Marine Biology, 85(1): 97-107.

You can continue searching for Phylum Ctenophora on one of these Web sites:

Fauna Europaea (animals) | IOPI (plants) | NCBI (genetic)

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