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A mixed group of copepods.

A mixed group of copepods.
A mixed group of copepods.
A mixed group of copepods.
A mixed group of copepods.
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348312
Linder, Christopher L.
A mixed group of copepods.
Still Image
05/04/2009
graphics/PD5_dailys/cl_20090504135902.jpg
Of course, the species don't live in single rooms in the real world. Here are some of the animals that came up in a vertical plankton net today. The biggest copepods in here are Calanus, like the female you saw in the first picture. The smallest are Pseudocalanus. There are a few Metridia in here, too-one is the clear, smallish copepod near the top of the picture, a bit left of center. This water has a bit of anesthetic to calm the animals down; most are lying on their backs. Not the Metridia. They keep on swimming. "They're cute," says Ashjian. "I like Metridia because they're just so nutter. They eat everything." They're the copepods that are most likely to eat their own eggs, and they have another cool feature that we'll get to in a minute.
Caption from Oceanus magazine, Vol. 51, No. 2, pg. 69:
Copepods, next to a pencil tip on the opposite page and in a sample from the Bering Sea below, are tiny shrimplike creatures. They are ubiquitous and provide a major source of food in the ocean. They may also act as hosts for bacteria, including pathogenic ones.
Image of The Day caption:
A net towed through the Bering Sea yielded a catch of copepods, tiny shrimp-like animals that are critical links in the productive Arctic Ocean food chain. In spring 2009, WHOI biologist and copepod expert Carin Ashjian led a research cruise to the Bering Sea aboard the icebreaker USCGC Healy. The cruise, featured on the WHOI Polar Discovery web site, was part of a multi-year research effort to study how climate change will affect this delicately balanced ocean ecosystem. WHOI's newest online expedition, exploring the Gulf of Mexico seafloor, is under way now on the Dive and Discover site.
Photo by Chris Linder
© Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
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