cool sea spider

im not quite sure what a sea spider is but its pretty cool looking.
Sea Spider 5915 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!


it has not gills or lungs it breaths through its skin(or exoskeleton)

appearently each muscle is only a single cell.

 

those spiders are sweet! but I had one once and he ate my birdsnest, at least it looked that way to me.

 

ive never seen them for sale before. whered you get it?

 

freeking LFS LR in their display, glad it was in the 2.5 gallon or that would have been hell getting him out. Under a microscope they look unreal! Really neat creature to watch but definitely not reef safe IMO.

 

They are baddies, in reef anyway...

 

It looks like it's one evolutionary step down from a starfish. But with the creepy factor!

 

And some people say fresh water has cool stuff.....
Thats why i like saltwater.. so many differant critters...

 

Exoskeletal creatures are like that: Ants, spiders, roaches, all insects (although I know spiders are not insects per se). They have small openings in their exoskeleton that allows oxygen to diffuse into the tissues via a tube system. They do not carry oxygen through the bloodstream via hemoglobin as vertebrates do. The larger insects have help 'breathing' via muscle contractions that push the oxygen containing air along to the end goal. Pretty cool. Not something that is thought about often. So there ya go....a small entomology study for the day.

 

Don't sea spiders feed on the blood of fish like mosquitoes? Who would want one?

 

pycnogonids may have interesting features but see how much you like them when you see one run like 30 mph across your LR and see it jump onto your favorite fish.