Ctenophores Ctenophora comb jellies phylum cilia of jelly cell cells
The Ctenophora commonly known as comb jellies, is a phylum of animals that live in all types of marine waters world-wide. Their most distinctive feature is the "combs", groups of cilia that they use for swimming, and they are the largest animals that swim by means of cilia – adults of various species range from a few millimeters to metres (59 in) in size. Like cnidarians', their bodies consist of a mass of jelly with one layer of cells on the outside and another lining the internal cavity. However in ctenophores these layers are two cells deep while those of cnidarians are only one cell deep. Ctenophores also resemble cnidarians in having a decentralized nerve net rather than a brain. Some authors combined ctenophores and cnidarians in one phylum, Coelenterata, as both groups rely on water flow though the body cavity for both digestion and respiration. However increasing awareness of the differences persuaded more recent authors to classify them in separate phlya. All are predators, taking prey ranging from microscopic larvae and rotifers to the adults of small crustaceans – except that juveniles of two species live as parasites on the salps on which adults of their species feed. In favorable circumstances ctenophores can eat ten times their own weight in a day. There are only 100–150 valid species and possibly another 25 that have not been fully described and named. The textbook examples are cydippids with egg-shaped bodies and a pair of retractable tentacles fringed with tentilla ("litte tentacles") that are covered with colloblasts, sticky cells that capture prey. However the phylum has a wide range of body forms, including the flattened deep-sea platyctenids, in which the adults of most species which lack combs, and the coastal beroids, which lack tentacles and prey on other ctenophores by using huge mouths armed with groups of large, stiffened cilia that act as "teeth". These variations enable different species to build huge pop
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