Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Dendraster Settlement!

On Thursday, I was admiring a very unusually shaped late stage Dendraster. I could see that the entire body was the juvenile, and the larval body was completely deformed. The juvenile's tiny tube feet could be seen moving about within the larval body, and as I watched, the first of the tube feet broke through the larval body. Tube foot after tube foot followed until the juvenile had almost completely emerged from the larval body. I rushed to get it under the video scope, but only caught the tail end of the emergence. In this video, you can see the juvenile about 1 minute after the initial emergence, and beneath it, the remains of the larval body can be seen. The translucent spikes beneath the juvenile are the fragments of larval skeleton. The entire emergence probably occurred over the period of about 2 minutes. The juvenile was then able to begin cruising around the substrate, though some of the larval body was still attached dorsally.  

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