An unidentified sea pen shares a pit with a shrimp. Sea pens (Pennatulacea) are soft-bodied octocorals that anchor into sediments by inflating the base of a large polyp with water. The side branches of this large polyp hold 10 or more feeding polyps. The surrounding sediment contains many petropod shells. Pteropods are a kind of snail that swims in the water column, and when they die their shells sink to the bottom. Image Courtesy of the Deep Atlantic Stepping Stones Science Party, IFE , URI-IAO, and NOAA.
Related Links
North Atlantic Stepping Stones 2005
