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Pteropoda (common name pteropods, from the Greek meaning "wing-foot") are specialized free-swimming pelagic sea snails and sea slugs, marine opisthobranch gastropods.Most live in the top 10 m of the ocean and are less than 1 cm long.
Most pteropods have some form of calcified shell, although it is often very light, even translucent. [ 3 ] The sea butterflies include some of the world's most abundant gastropod species; [ 1 ] as their large numbers are an essential part of the ocean food chain, they are a significant contributor to the oceanic carbon cycle .
The adaptations also explain the common name sea angel and the scientific name of the order: From Greek gymnos meaning "naked" and soma meaning "body". The lack of a heavy shell for gymnosomes allows them to hover on the upper water surfaces for longer periods, along with a streamlined body that reduces the drag coefficient.
Pteropods are strict pelagic mollusks that are highly adapted to life in the open ocean. [11] They are actively swimming in the water. Limacina helicina is a holoplanktonic species. Habitat of Limacina helicina is upper epipelagic and glacial. [16] It lives in temperatures from -0.4 °C to +4.0 °C or rarely up to 7 °C. [27]
This is an index of lists of mythological figures from ancient Greek religion and mythology. List of Greek deities; List of mortals in Greek mythology; List of Greek legendary creatures; List of minor Greek mythological figures; List of Trojan War characters; List of deified people in Greek mythology; List of Homeric characters
All forms of life in the sea have the potential to become food for another life form. In the ocean, a food chain typically starts with energy from the sun powering phytoplankton, and follows a course such as: phytoplankton → herbivorous zooplankton → carnivorous zooplankton → filter feeder → predatory vertebrate
[2] [3] Marine microorganisms have been variously estimated to make up about 70%, [4] or about 90%, [5] [6] of the biomass in the ocean. Taken together they form the marine microbiome. Over billions of years this microbiome has evolved many life styles and adaptations and come to participate in the global cycling of almost all chemical elements ...
Clionoidea is a taxonomic superfamily of sea slugs, specifically naked (i.e. unshelled) pteropods, marine opisthobranch gastropod mollusks in the clade Gymnosomata. [1] They are sometimes called "sea angels" or "naked sea butterflies" along with the other superfamily in the Gymnosomata. They can be found anywhere from the surface to a depth of ...