What is the difference between a medusa and a polyp?
Polyps have a tubular shape and are fastened at their base, with the mouth facing the water at the other end of the tube. Medusa has a bell-shaped body with hanging tentacles. Polyp does not have a manubrium. The Hydrozoa class’s Medusa has a manubrium, a tube that hangs from the bell.
Do polyps move?
Polyps are generally sedentary. Pennatulacean colonies move slowly across soft substrata by action of their inflatable peduncle (a stalk that attaches to the strata in the lower end and to the polyp body on the higher end).
What is an example of polyp and medusa?
The polyp is a sessile, or nonmotile, organism; well-known solitary polyps are the sea anemone and the freshwater hydra. The medusa, when free swimming, is popularly known as a jellyfish.
What does a medusa jellyfish look like?
medusa, in zoology, one of two principal body types occurring in members of the invertebrate animal phylum Cnidaria. It is the typical form of the jellyfish. The medusoid body is bell- or umbrella-shaped. Hanging downward from the centre is a stalklike structure, the manubrium, bearing the mouth at its tip.
Is Jelly a medusa or polyp?
Jellyfish have a stalked (polyp) phase, when they are attached to coastal reefs, and a jellyfish (medusa) phase, when they float among the plankton. The medusa is the reproductive stage; their eggs are fertilised internally and develop into free-swimming planula larvae.
What are medusa and 11 polyps?
| Difference Between Medusa and Polyp | |
|---|---|
| Polyp | Medusa |
| Polyps possess a tubular shape | Medusa has a bell-shaped body |
| Mouth | |
| The mouth of polyps faces the water upwards | Medusa have their mouths facing the water downwards |
Does a polyp turn into a medusa?
Cnidarians come in two basic shapes. An anemone is the polyp shape. If the polyp shape is turned upside down, it becomes the medusa shape of the jellyfish.
Is Coral medusa or polyp?
Classes. In the class Anthozoa, comprising the sea anemones and corals, the individual is always a polyp; in the class Hydrozoa, however, the individual may be either a polyp or a medusa, with most species undergoing a life cycle with both a polyp stage and a medusa stage.
How are polyp and medusa related?
There are two basic cnidarian body shapes: a polyp form, which is attached to a surface; and an upside-down free-floating form called a medusa. Some cnidarians change form at different phases of their life cycle, while others remain in one form for their entire life.
What does a coral polyp look like?
Coral Polyps The coral animal is made of many polyps that look like miniature sea anemones. Each polyp generally ranges in size from one (1) to ten (10) millimeters across, although the polyps of some species may be larger. Like an anemone, a coral polyp has a soft, tubular body topped by a ring of tentacles.
What does a sea polyp look like?
What do zooxanthellae give to their coral polyp?
Tiny plant cells called zooxanthellae live within most types of coral polyps. They help the coral survive by providing it with food resulting from photosynthesis. In turn, the coral polyps provide the cells with a protected environment and the nutrients they need to carry out photosynthesis.