Wheel Wearers: Cycliophora - Physical Characteristics, Behavior And Reproduction, Conservation Status - GEOGRAPHIC RANGE, HABITAT, DIET, WHEEL WEARERS AND PEOPLE
live animals lobster shell
Wheel wearers live in the northeastern part of the Atlantic Ocean, including the Mediterranean Sea.
Wheel wearers live only on bristles in the mouths of Norway lobsters.
Wheel wearers eat particles of the lobster's prey, usually mollusks and crustaceans. Mollusks (MAH-lusks) are animals with a soft, unsegmented body that may or may not have a shell. Crustaceans (krus-TAY-shuns) are water-dwelling animals that have jointed legs and a hard shell but no backbone.
Wheel wearers have no known importance to people. Because they do not harm their lobster hosts, wheel wearers are not a problem for people who make their living catching and selling lobsters.
Additional Topics
Wheel wearers are microscopic animals that live in the mouths of Norway lobsters. Symbion pandora is the only fully described species. Scientists have found two other species, but do not have enough details to describe them thoroughly. The main phase in the life cycle of wheel wearers is the feeding stage. Wheel wearers in this stage are about 0.01 inch (350 micrometers) long. The body is made up …
When a lobster seizes its prey, food particles and nutrients are suspended in the water around its mouthparts. The hairlike fibers in the wheel wearer's funnel beat and make a current, which causes water containing food particles to flow into the funnel, where the food particles are grabbed by the hairlike fibers and moved toward the stomach. Feeding-stage wheel wearers use internal budding…
Wheel wearers are not considered threatened or endangered. …
Citing this material
Please include a link to this page if you have found this material useful for research or writing a related article. Content on this website is from high-quality, licensed material originally published in print form. You can always be sure you're reading unbiased, factual, and accurate information.
Highlight the text below, right-click, and select “copy”. Paste the link into your website, email, or any other HTML document.
User Comments