THE WONDER OF LIFE 



ceans have a rich representation at many levels of com- 

 plexity, and there are quaint Sea-Spiders or Pycnogonids 

 which are neither spiders nor crustaceans ; most of the 

 molluscan types are in abundant evidence ; and finally 

 there is a weird army of voracious abyssal fishes. 



Adaptations. A common feature in the sedentary 

 Deep-Sea animals is the possession of long stalks on which 

 the more essential parts of the body are raised high out 

 of the treacherous ooze. We 

 see this useful adaptation in 

 the surpassingly beautiful 

 Crinoids which grow some- 

 times in great beds, in 

 Alcyonarians such as Umbel- 

 lulas and Funiculinas, and in 

 some of the sponges like the 

 Glass-Rope-Sponge. In some 

 of the Alcyonarians the sup- 

 porting stalk which bears the 

 colony of polyps on its sum- 

 mit may be over a yard in 

 length. 



A similar adaptation is seen 

 in the extraordinarily long 

 limbs which many of the 

 Crustaceans and Sea-Spiders 

 exhibit. They illustrate an 

 FIG. 30. Deep-Sea Brittle extreme of lankiness and they 



Star or Ophiuroid, Astro- J 



charis virgo, showing the may be thought of as walking 

 onstilte. In many cases the 



liable to breakage and limbs are several times longer 



the very small central 



disc. (4/terKoehler.) than the body. There can 



