Photo of the Week

We are excited to bring back our Photo of the Week section so stay tuned for new content coming soon! In the meantime, take a look at these fantastic pictures from our teachers.

Tunicate Time

June 12, 2018

A collection of Thetys sp. captured in a trawl. Thetys sp., a type of salp, are planktonic (floating) tunicates that can occur in solitary or colonial form.

Photo: Kimberly Godfrey

I didn’t know what to expect from our first catch. Maybe we would have some fish, crabs, squid…However the first catch brought something I never saw before. Lots of Thetys! Thetys are a type of salp. Salps are planktonic, colonial tunicates from the phylum Chordata. We also had pyrosomes, another type of colonial tunicate... in areas where salps are prevalent, one can expect to find less of other species from the same trophic level. For this catch, that happened to be the case.

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