Description: A salp floating in the water column in the Gulf of Mexico Item Type: Video Title: A salp in the Gulf of Mexico Species: Salpa fusiformis Behaviour: Floating in water column Site: Atlantic -- Gulf of Mexico -- Green Canyon 821 Site Description: Midwater Depth (m): 612 Latitude: 27 deg 09' 20" N Longitude: 90 deg 29' 43" W Countries: Mexico -- Gulf of Mexico Habitat: Water temp 6.35 degrees celcius Rig: Transocean Marianas Project Partners: BP, Oceaneering, Transocean ROV: Millennium Deposited By: Rob Curry Deposited On: 17 May 2007
This is the cloned, sexual phase of a pelagic tunicate. The individuals, each a sequential hermaphrodite, lie in a double chain oriented back to back. Eventually the chain will break apart and each individual will sexually produce an asexual solitary salp. Inconceivably large numbers of aggregate salps can cover hundreds of square miles of ocean.
During the season of upwelling these pelagic tunicates, salps, may be swept into the outer bay filtering plankton as they swim. Tunicates, our cousins, are in the Phylum Chordata. This is the solitary phase; the ropelike chain is the cloned, sexual, aggregate phase that later will be extruded, often several hundred individuals.
