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    Syarif Hidayat Amrullah
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    The fossil record of hydrozoans is scanty before the Cenozoic, starting about 65 million years ago. The oldest fossil milleporines and stylasterines appeared in the late Cretaceous. Some hydrozoan groups may secrete chitinous exoskeletons.

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    The fossil record of hydrozoans is scanty before the Cenozoic, starting about 65 million years ago. The oldest fossil milleporines and stylasterines appeared in the late Cretaceous. Some hydrozoan groups may secrete chitinous exoskeletons.

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    106 views7 pages

    Introduction To The Hydrozoa NEW!

    Uploaded by

    Syarif Hidayat Amrullah
    The fossil record of hydrozoans is scanty before the Cenozoic, starting about 65 million years ago. The oldest fossil milleporines and stylasterines appeared in the late Cretaceous. Some hydrozoan groups may secrete chitinous exoskeletons.

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    of 7

    From: http//www.ucmp.berkeley.edubacteriacyanosy.html 1.

    Introduction to the Hydrozoa


    2. 3. 4. 5.

    Hydrozoa: Fossil Record Hydrozoa: Life History and Ecology - Introduction to the Chondrophorina Hydrozoa: Systematics Hydrozoa: More on Morphology

    BIOLOGY Makassar State University

    Introduction to Hydrozoa

    Pelagiat: Syarif BIO 07


    Pelagiat ini adalah seorang mahasiswa biologi sok tahu dan paling gak aktif di Universitas Negeri Makassar. Berbekal kemampuan membajaknya ia telah membuat sejumlah karya (sebenarnya cuma meng-copy) tentang materi kuliah Pendidikan Biologi semester III. Tak ada lain dan tak ada maksud selain mencoba membantu mahasiswa dalam memperluas pengetahuannya, tidak hanya mendapat info dari diktat warisan dan transparansi berjamur. Hidup internetan gratis!!

    HYDROZOA Copied from httpwww.ucmp.berkeley.edubacteriacyanosy.html

    BIOLOGI FMIPA UNM

    Penerbit Suka-Suka Gue

    HYDROZOA Copied from httpwww.ucmp.berkeley.edubacteriacyanosy.html

    BIOLOGI FMIPA UNM

    Intoduction to the Hydrozoa


    Perhaps the best-known hydrozoan, familiar to most students of introductory biology, is Hydra, pictured at left. Hydra never goes through a medusoid stage and spends its entire life as a polyp. However, Hydra is not typical of the Hydrozoa as a whole. Most hydrozoans alternate between a polyp and a medusa stage they spend part of their lives as "jellyfish" which are hard to distinguish from scyphozoan jellyfish. A great many hydrozoans are also colonial. Some form delicate branched colonies, while others, known as "fire corals," form massive colonies that resemble true corals. Other hydrozoans have developed pelagic (floating) colonies that are often confused with jellyfish, but unlike jellyfish they are composed of many individuals, all specialized for various functions. The "Portuguese mano'war" and "by-the-wind-sailors" that often wash up on beaches are examples of these unusual colonial hydrozoans.

    Hydrozoa: Fossil Record

    HYDROZOA Copied from httpwww.ucmp.berkeley.edubacteriacyanosy.html Hydrozoans may date back to the Vendian (late Precambrian), but the fossil record of hydrozoans is scanty before the Cenozoic, starting about 65 million years ago. The oldest fossil milleporines and stylasterines the "fire corals," so called from their stony growths that resemble those of true true corals appeared in the Late Cretaceous and are moderately common as fossils in the Cenozoic. Other hydrozoan groups may secrete chitinous exoskeletons (periderm) that may

    BIOLOGI FMIPA UNM

    occasionally be preserved as fossils. A rare fossil hydroid, Mississippidendrium from the Cretaceous of northeast Mississippi, is shown at the top of the page. Note the branches with thecae, or cups, on the ends, which would have surrounded the bases of the polyps in life. The chondrophorines, or "by-the-wind sailors," float by means of an internal chitinous float, which may occasionally be preserved as a fossil impression. The earliest chondrophorines may be Vendian forms like Eoporpita.

    Hydrozoa: Life History and Ecology


    With about 2700 species, the Hydrozoa are a fairly diverse group, but they usually receive little notice, because many species form small branched colonies that can be mistaken for seaweed. Such colonial hydrozoans may be found attached to rocks or other hard substrates. Some colonies encrust hard substrates, while others form little feather-shaped or bushlike erect colonies. The members of one hydrozoan genus in particular, Hydractinia, form dense crusts on shells occupied by hermit crabs, and apparently defend the crab from predators. Other colonial hydrozoans, such as the chondrophorines and siphonophorans, are pelagic; many of these have developed internal gas-filled floats as an aid to buoyancy. Some siphonophores may reach lengths of over a meter and migrate up to 300 meters vertically in the water column in an hour. Most hydrozoans are marine, but hydrozoans also include the few cnidarians that have adapted to fresh water: these are the polyps in the genus Hydra and a few species of small freshwater jellyfish.

    HYDROZOA Copied from httpwww.ucmp.berkeley.edubacteriacyanosy.html

    BIOLOGI FMIPA UNM

    Introduction to the Chondrophorina

    It looks like a jellyfish but it isn'tPorpita, shown here, isn't even a single organism, but a colony! The central disc is reinforced with a chitinlike material and is chambered in cross-section; filled with gas, it keeps Porpita afloat, for these are pelagic creatures. The "tentacles" of Porpita are in fact individual zooids, each of which is specialized for a particular function, such as digestion, prey capture, or reproduction. Porpita is a member of a small but very widespread group of hydrozoan cnidarians, the Chondrophorina. There are only two accepted genera of chondrophorines, Porpita, shown above; and

    Velella, which resembles Porpita but has a keel-like "sail" on its aboral surface. Both often wash up on beaches in huge flotillas of thousands of organisms. Chondrophorines were once classified with another unusual group of hydrozoans, the siphonophores. The most famous siphonophore is Physalia, the so-called "Portuguese man-o' war." Like Porpita, siphonophores somewhat resemble jellyfish but are actually colonial organisms, with different individuals specialized for different functions; most, but not all, have a gas- filled float.

    HYDROZOA Copied from httpwww.ucmp.berkeley.edubacteriacyanosy.html

    BIOLOGI FMIPA UNM

    Hydrozoa: Systematics
    Traditional systematics divides the Hydrozoa into five orders:

    Trachylinida Small medusae with no polyp generation; medusae develop directly from a crawling larva known as an actinula. Trachylines are very rare as fossils. Hydroida Mostly colonial forms with alternating polyp and medusa stages and a chitinous exoskeleton. A few, such as Hydra, are solitary polyps that lack a medusoid stage. The chondrophorines are now usually classified in the Hydroida; formerly they were placed with the Siphonophorida (see below). Milleporina and Stylasterina Colonial forms with massive skeletons of aragonite (calcium carbonate). These two orders differ in details of skeletal construction and dactylozooid (prey-gathering polyp) morphology. Sometimes grouped together as the Hydrocorallina, and known as "fire corals" for their coral-like growth and their painful sting. Siphonophorida Complex colonial forms, with individual polyps specialized for feeding, swimming, prey capture, and reproduction. Some but not all float by means of a large pneumatophore, or gas bag. The best-known siphonophorid is Physalia, the stinging "Portuguese man-o'-war." Siphonophores are unknown as fossils.

    HYDROZOA Copied from httpwww.ucmp.berkeley.edubacteriacyanosy.html

    BIOLOGI FMIPA UNM

    Hydrozoa: More on Morphology


    Most hydrozoans show the same alternation between polyp and medusa phases that the Scyphozoa, or "true" jellyfish, have. A fertilized egg develops into a sessile polyp, which buds asexually and eventually buds off one or more medusae. The medusa produce eggs and sperm, reproduce sexually, and thus the cycle is repeated. The difference between most hydrozoans and most scyphozoans is that in hydrozoans, the polyp stage usually predominates, with the medusa small or sometimes absent. Often, the medusa never breaks away from the parent polyp, and remains in a state of arrested development, although its gametes function. Such a medusa is referred to as a sporosarc. In scyphozoans, the medusa stage is typically large and free-living, with the polyp stage small. However, there are exceptions certain hydrozoans known as the Trachylina never form a polyp stage. Free-living medusoid hydrozoans can be hard to tell from scyphozoans, but hydrozoan medusae generally have a muscular shelf, or velum, projecting inward from the margin of the bell. This structure is not found in scyphozoans. Hydrozoans also lack cells in the mesoglea, the jelly layer found between the basic cell layers, whereas scyphozoans contain amoeboid cells in the mesoglea.

    Another feature that is quite common in Hydrozoa but not typical of Scyphozoa is colonial organization. While a few hydrozoans, such as Hydra, are solitary polyps, most live in colonies made up of anywhere from a few to thousands of individual polyps. Colonies may secrete extensive calcium carbonate skeletons (coenosteum) or be covered with a flexible chitinous exoskeleton (perisarc). In colonial hydroids, the individual polyps, or zooids, are differentiated for different functions: gastrozooids feed, dactylozoids capture prey, and gonozooids give rise to medusoids with gametes. Some colonial hydrozoans are so integrated that they behave like a single animal and are often mistaken for jellyfish. The "by-the-wind-sailors," or chondrophorines, are such colonial hydroids. Even more integrated are the siphonophores, which not only bear feeding and reproductive zooids but often nectophores, or pulsating swimming bells, and/or pneumatophores, or gas-filled floats. Shown above left is a beached siphonophore, Physalia utriculus, known as the "Blue Bottle." It is a close relative of the "Portuguese man-o'-war" (Physalia physalis); the gas float is at the top, with one long feeding tentacle hanging below.

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