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Sea Butterflies

These marine snails are called pteropods (from the Greek words meaning “wing foot”) or “sea butterflies” because of their winglike swimming appendages. Masses of pteropods drift with currents in the open ocean, providing food for fish and whales. Like garden snails, pteropods build calcium carbonate shells. But pteropods’ thin, fragile shells may be vulnerable to the ocean’s changing chemistry. At WHOI, biologists Gareth Lawson and Amy Maas have championed studies of pteropods to investigate how these beautiful creatures and other links in the food chain will be affected by ocean acidification.(Photo by Nancy Copley, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)