CTENOPHORA

(Ctenos-comb; phora-bearing)
•Composed of fewer than 100sp.

•Also called sea walnuts or comb jellies.

•Marine, found abundant in warm waters, though some occur in artic and temperate regions.

•Most are planktonic, floating in surface waters, but few can be found in depths upto 3000m.

•Tissue grade of body organization, biradially symmetrical, most are free swimming except for
few creeping & sessile forms.

•Body surface bears 8 longitudinal row of transverse plates bearing cilia, called comb plates.

•Two long tentacles are borne in tentacle sheath. Tentacles can be retracted or extended.

•The surface of the tentacles bears specialized glue cells called colloblast which secrete a sticky
substance that aid in capturing prey.

•When tentacles are covered with food, food is wiped off on the mouth.

•The gastrovascular cavity consists of pharynx, stomach & a system of gastrovascular

canals.
•Nerve net follows cnidarian pattern.

•At the aboral pole is statocyst , sense organ of equilibrium.

•They are hermaphrodite, bearing both ovary & testes. Gametes are shed into water, few
Sp brood their eggs.

•There is free swimming larva.

•Many are bioluminescent, able to give off light.

Cnidaria & ctenophora are probably derived from ancestor that resembled the planula
larva.

Evolutionary systematics show the evolutionary sequence as hydrozoa--- Scyphozoa---

Anthozoa.

Molecular systematics show the sequence as Anthozoa---Scyphozoa---Hydrozoa.