Salps, chained in a long colony
Salps are barrel-shaped and they form large chains. They move by contracting, thereby pumping water through its gelatinous body.
They are like siphonophores, they have a a kind of central organism that looks like a dot as we see in the video.
Typically they form the long colony in a chain. They feed on phytoplankton which they filter during he pumping process.
In the Canaries they can be quite abundant with the increase in phytoplankton during and after calimas.
(Many thanks to Cameron for the identification of these species)
More Information
We get many questions about what there is to see when you go diving in the south of Gran Canaria. We want to respond to this by creating a number of articles where each highlights a specific species we regularly encounter when diving in the Atlantic. The complete series gives you a good idea of what to find when scuba diving in the blue waters of the south of Gran Canaria. Let’s be clear we are not marine biologists; just a dive centre trying to provide valuable information to our customers.
For the full details of the species we would like to refer to www.Wikipedia.com. Here you’ll find more detail than we go into.
