Jelly Ring

A colony of 12 salps drifts through the distant tropical waters of the Phoenix Islands. The salps are transparent tubular animals arranged around a center, like segments in an orange. For food, they filter tiny particles out of the water, and the orange loops are their stomachs. Each salp, both mom and pop, carries a baby (see the small tube attached to two circles, upper left) and a testis (the bright white areas near the stomachs.)(Photo by Larry Madin, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)