Tentacles Help Filter Food

Biological Strategy

Burrowing sea cucumber

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Capture, Absorb, or Filter Solids

Some living systems must secure solid particles such as sediment, usually to keep the particles from hindering their health or activity. The most common way in which they do this is through filtering. To be effective, a filtering system must be appropriate to the sizes of solid particles to be captured and must capture only what is needed. It must also be effective in the appropriate media–air, water, or sometimes solids like soil. An example is mangroves, which are trees that grow along ocean coasts. Their root system slows down and settles sediment out of the water, building up soil to support the mangrove ecosystem.

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Capture, Absorb, or Filter Energy

Energy is naturally available in many forms, including kinetic, potential, thermal, elastic, radiant, chemical, and more. All living systems require energy to carry out their many activities, and have developed strategies appropriate to one or more of those forms. For example, some plants maximize their surface area available for capturing radiant energy from the sun while others have strategies to focus scattered light onto photosynthesizing areas.

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Gastropods

Class Gastropoda (“stomach-foot”): Snails and slugs

There are at least 40,000 known species of gastropod, with many more yet to be discovered, making it the largest class of mollusks. These animals exhibit torsion, meaning their internal organs are twisted 180° during development. The majority of gastropods have shells, and most open up on the right side. The largest gastropods are the size of a small child (3 feet, or 1 meter) while the smallest are barely visible to the naked eye.

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The tentacles of the burrowing sea cucumber capture floating particulate food matter using on a complex particle trap, mucus, and an oral passageway.

“The feeding tentacles, being part of the water-vascular system, can be
extended by hydraulic pressure. The four basic types of tentacles are
dendritic, peltate, digitate, and pinnate [burrowing sea cucumbers’ tentacles are
dendritic]. Dendritic tentacles gather small particles suspended in the
water. Particles adhere to a coating of mucus on the tentacle, then the
sea cucumber places it into its mouth and removes the food. This is
suspension feeding. Cucumeria miniata [Burrowing sea cucumber] is a
common suspension feeder.” (Lambert 1997:6)

Last Updated August 18, 2016

References

Book

Sea Cucumbers of British Columbia, Southeast Alaska and Puget Sound (Royal British Columbia Museum Handbook)

16/06/1997 | Philip Lambert

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