Welcome back to another installment of Wild Facts – Deep Sea Creatures!  Today is going to be a great day.  Not just because it is June 1st and not even because I officially move to Ottawa today (okay maybe the last one contributes a little bit to the greatness of the day).  Nope, today is going to be an amazing day since we are heading back to the sea to learn about a little worm-like creature called the Sea Pen.  You can’t tell me that you aren’t excited to learn about a sea worm? Hmmm… well I guess you can, but don’t worry, I promise you will find this animal to be very intriguing.

Obviously, the Sea Pen is not a real pen; however, they are named after the one sub-order which looks like those antique feather pens. Unfortunately, there is only one group of Sea Pens that actually live up to this antique pen-like description.  The other species have club-like structures, so maybe they should have called them Sea Clubs!

Okay, so what exactly is a Sea Pen?  Well, they are colonial, marine cnidarians!  I am sure that clears up all of the confusion, right? Maybe I can do a better job explaining what they are.  The Sea Pen is basically a sessile animal (they don’t move a whole lot) and fit into the same category as Sea Anemones and Coral.  In fact, they are classed as an octocoral, which has multiple polyps (basically a sac-like structure) and each polyp will have eight tentacles.  I believe it is these 8 tentacles which allows them entrance into the special octocoral  club.

Although, these multiple polyps make the Sea Pen look awesome, they actually do serve a purpose.  These structures covering the Sea Pen will often become rigid and lose all of their tentacles (don’t worry, they still let the Sea Pen in the octocoral club after this happens).  These rigid polyps will then be responsible for things such as water intake, food intake, and even reproductive structures.  Who would have thought that Polyps can be a good thing?

Sea Pen Fast Facts – Although the Sea Pen is anchored into the ground, it is possible for them to pull the anchor and move to a new spot if they need to.  Typically they position themselves into a spot with a nice current that can bring them all kinds of plankton, their favourite food.

Well that does it today’s Wild Fact on an animal that was extremely difficult to explain.  Hopefully the pictures help with understanding this unique creature.  See you tomorrow for another Deep Sea Animal.