PaulCyp wrote:
>
> The Sargasso Sea starts about 100 miles southeast of Bermuda, and occupies an
> area roughly 2/3 the size of the United States.  It is made up of floating
> Sargassum seaweed.  This stuff is designed to float - it has little hollow
> spherical floats attached, which is how you can recognize it if you find it
> washed up on the beach.  It is yellow-brown in color, and the "leaves" are
> rather stiff, feeling almost like plastic.  There are many kinds of animals
> specifically designed to live there, including the sargassum fish Sue
> mentioned (a type of small angler fish, scientific name Histrio histrio), as
> well as seahorses, pipefish, and specialized crabs, shrimp, anemones, and
> others.  Many of them are the color of Sargassum, and some have structures
> that make them look even more like Sargassum. As far as mollusks go, the
> purple sea snails (Janthina) can be found there, but Sargassum isn't the
> habitat of Janthina as such.  Janthina lives floating on the surface of the
> open ocean, and so does Sargassum, so inevitably they sometimes get tangled
> together, and the snails may be carried ashore when portions of the weed break
> off and are driven ashore by currents and winds.  There is however a snail
> which actually lives on the Sargassum, and nowhere else, namely Litiopa
> melanostoma (common name - Sargassum snail).  It is a small (under a half
> inch), thin-shelled, brown snail.  It somewhat resembles a fresh water Lymnaea
> shell.  I have found them on Sargassum weed beached on the south shore of Cape
> Cod (Massachusetts).  That's a long way from the Sargasso Sea, but the Gulf
> Stream comes right up the Atlantic coast, and often carries Sargassum with it.
> One other interesting fact about the Sargasso Sea - it is the breeding ground
> for the common eels of the north Atlantic, both European and American.  They
> migrate down the Gulf Stream to the Sargasso Sea to breed; then the Gulf
> Stream carries the planktonic larvae back north.
>
> Paul M.
 
More on the Litiopa melanostoma that lives on the Sargassum.  You wonder
what happens if the snail falls off.  In an aquarium you can see what
happens.  knock one of the shells off and it has a safely line of slime
that looks like a fine thread.  It just climbs back up onto the
Sargassum weed.
 
Bob Lipe
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