Appendicularian development and nutrition

This video footage shows the details of the filter feeding behavior of the appendicularian O. dioica. The concentration of particles in the house, the transport to the mouth, the retention by the pharyngeal filter of food particles and their path in the digestive tract until the expulsion of the fecal pellets are detailed. Fertilization and embryogenesis are also briefly showed. During a long-term collaboration in the eighties with M. Kage from the Institut für Wissenschaftliche Fotografie, Germany, we recorded hours of footage on feeding behavior and fecundation in O. dioica cultivated at the Observatoire Océanologique of Villefranche sur mer, France. With R. Fenaux we have summarized the feeding behavior and development of the appendicularian O. dioica in a video sequence of 11 min. We thank M. Kage for his substantial contribution to this work, F. Abbaz for the videotapes remastering and P. Chang for the narration.