1/ Are you sitting down? Get comfy, this one's a doozy: Here's a PSA about the alternation of generations and sequential hermaphroditism of Thetys vagina salps.
2/
• These are salps—filter-feeding, gelatinous drifters.
• Their scientific name is Thetys vagina.
• Vagina salps come in two morphs: solitary (📸 1) and chains (📸 2)
• Joe Platko took these photos this week off Cannery Row. Thanks Joe! mbayaq.co/2D1br75
3/ • Solitary salps produce the chains asexually—you can see a rope of clones (the stolon) forming in the salp's "belly," each small orb being the gut of one salp in the chain.
• Chains of the clonal individuals can be tens of feet long. The chain here was about 3 feet long.