Ctenophora

Cydippid Pleurobranchia: Cydippid pleurobranchia swimming and rapidly retracting its tentacles

Mnemiopsis leidyi. Time lapse of Ctenophore development. Mnemiopsis leidyi – This DIC time lapse movie was made by Kevin Pang at the Marine Biological Lab in Woods Hole MA when he was a grad student in mark q martindale’s lab. It is a single focal plane and spans approximately the first 8 hours of development. The unipolar first cleavage occurs at the animal pole and will give rise to the future mouth. The movie ends at the “mickey mouse” stage of development where the pharynx is invaginating and the two tentacle bulbs have yet to involute.

Mnemiopsis leidyi -This movie is an embryo of the lobate ctenophore Mnemiopsis leidyi in which the precursor of the mesoderm in on quadrant was labeled with DiI. The cells labeled in red micrate from the oral pole where they are born up under the aboral pole (where the apical organ forms) and then spread under the overlying ectoderm to their final locations. The embryo was labeled by mark q martindale and imaged by Kevin Pang at the MBL in Woods Hole, MA.