In just 48 hours, Salps can mature, making them the fastest-growing multicellular animals on Earth, significantly impacting ocean health.
Salp (Salpa fusiformis) are widely distributed across the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, primarily feeding on plankton and anything small enough to get caught in their feeding nets. Often described as “jellyfish balls” or “gelatinous buckets”, these marine organisms are translucent and have a jelly-like texture, according to Live Science.
Salps can connect to form long chains. (Photo: Henry Jager).
There are over 70 species of Salps worldwide, with Salpa fusiformis being the most common. Salps can be found from the ocean’s surface down to depths of about 800 meters. They have a barrel-shaped body, ranging from 0.2 cm at birth to 10 cm when fully grown. They can connect to each other, drifting in long chains with the tide.
Salps can propel themselves using jet propulsion. They pump seawater through their bodies with muscular bands around their bodies. As water is expelled from their bodies towards the back, Salps collect food and move forward. Due to this mechanism, they are classified in the group of gelatinous zooplankton.
Unlike jellyfish, Salps do not have stinging cells. Their diet consists of plankton, but they filter everything that can be caught in their mucous nets. By filtering large volumes of water, they play a crucial role in combating climate change. A swarm of Salps covering an area of 100,000 km2 can capture up to 4,000 tons of CO2 in a single night.
Mature Salps undergo two distinct stages: asexual oozoid stage and sexual blastozooid stage. When the asexual oozoid is ready to reproduce, it creates long chains of Salps, each being a clone of itself. These Salps then develop into sexually reproducing blastozooids. Eggs develop inside the body, and Salps give birth to live young. The young swim away and grow into asexual oozoids. Eventually, the entire chain transforms into male Salps, releasing sperm to fertilize the eggs of nearby female blastozooids.
With a maturation time of just 48 hours, Salps are the fastest-growing multicellular animals on Earth, increasing their body length by 10% each hour.
