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Sea pansy
Scientific classification
Domain:
Eukaryota
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Cnidaria
Class:
Octocorallia
Order:
Pennatulacea
Family:
Renillidae
Genus:
Renilla
Species:
R. reniformis
Binomial name
Renilla reniformis
(Pallas, 1766)
The sea pansy, Renilla reniformis, is a species of soft coral in the family Renillidae.[1] It is native to warm continental shelf waters of the Western Hemisphere.[2][3] It is frequently found washed ashore on North East Florida beaches following northeasterly winds or rough surf conditions. It also can often be found living intertidally completely buried in the sand. Its predator is the striped sea slug, Armina tigrina.
The sea pansy is a collection of polyps with different forms and functions.[1] A single, giant polyp up to two inches in diameter forms the anchoring stem (peduncle). This peduncle can be distended to better anchor the colony in the substrate. The pansy-like body bears many small, anemone-like feeding polyps. A cluster of tentacleless polyps form an outlet valve that releases water to deflate the colony. If the colony is on a sand bar at low tide, it usually deflates and becomes covered with a thin film of silty sand. Small white dots between the feeding polyps are polyps that act as pumps to expand the deflated colony. The feeding polyps secrete a sticky mucus to trap tiny organisms suspended in the water. The colony’s rigidity and purple color come from calcium carbonate spicules throughout the polyp’s tissues.
The sea pansy is strikingly bioluminescent when disturbed because of the interplay between a luciferase (Renilla-luciferin 2-monooxygenase) and green fluorescent protein (GFP). Both molecules have recently become extremely important in biology.[4] It also produces secondary metabolites for chemical defence that may make it an interesting source of marine natural products.[5]
A draft genome of R. reniformis was sequenced in 2018, producing a haploid genome size of 172 megabases (Mb). This makes it one of the most small and compact coral genomes discovered to date[6]
^ abWilliams GC (2011-07-29). "The global diversity of sea pens (Cnidaria: Octocorallia: Pennatulacea)". PLOS ONE. 6 (7): e22747. Bibcode:2011PLoSO...622747W. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0022747. PMC 3146507. PMID 21829500.
^ "Renilla reniformis (Pallas, 1766)". World Register of Marine Species. Retrieved 2022-10-20.
^"Sea Pansy (Renilla reniformis)". Encyclopedia of Life. Retrieved 2022-10-20.
^Ruppert E, Fox R (1988). Seashore Animals of the Southeast. University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 0872495353.[page needed]
^Clavico EE, De Souza AT, Da Gama BA, Pereira RC (October 2007). "Antipredator defense and phenotypic plasticity of sclerites from Renilla muelleri, a tropical sea pansy". The Biological Bulletin. 213 (2): 135–40. doi:10.2307/25066629. JSTOR 25066629. PMID 17928520. S2CID 24742847.
^Kayal E, Bentlage B, Pankey MS, Ohdera AH, Medina M, Plachetzki DC, Collins AG, Ryan JF (2018). "Phylogenomics provides a robust topology of the major cnidarian lineages and insights on the origins of key organismal traits". BMC Evolutionary Biology. 18 (1): 68. doi:10.1186/s12862-018-1142-0. ISSN 1471-2148. PMC 5932825.
The seapansy, Renilla reniformis, is a species of soft coral in the family Renillidae. It is native to warm continental shelf waters of the Western Hemisphere...
radiating forms. The latter suborder includes what are commonly known as seapansies. The earliest accepted fossils are known from the Cambrian-aged Burgess...
fireflies, and many marine animals such as copepods, jellyfish, and the seapansy. However, luciferases have been studied in luminous fungi, like the Jack-O-Lantern...
(also known as sea cookies or snapper biscuits in New Zealand and Brazil, or pansy shells in South Africa) are species of flat, burrowing sea urchins belonging...
The fluorescence quantum yield (QY) of GFP is 0.79. The GFP from the seapansy (Renilla reniformis) has a single major excitation peak at 498 nm. GFP...
Renilla muelleri (also spelled R. mulleri or R. müilleri) is a species of seapansy. It has been reported from the Gulf Coast of the United States, notably...
luciferase enzymes. The three main sources are the North American firefly, the seapansy (and related marine organisms), and bacteria like Photorhabdus luminescens...
confusion, some organisms are both bioluminescent and fluorescent, like the seapansy Renilla reniformis, where bioluminescence serves as the light source for...
and includes the soft corals and gorgonians (sea pens, sea fans and sea whips), and seapansies. The smaller subclass, Ceriantharia, consists of the tube-dwelling...
progenitor of the cultivated pansy, and is therefore sometimes called wild pansy; before the cultivated pansies were developed, "pansy" was an alternative name...
isolated and characterized by two groups studying the luminescent organisms seapansy (Renilla reniformis) and the cnidarian Aequorea victoria, respectively...
jellyfish Aequorea victoria. Variants have also been isolated from the seapansy Renilla reniformis. GFP, like aequorin, produces a blue fluorescent signal...
Viola pedunculata, the California golden violet, Johnny jump up, or yellow pansy, is a perennial yellow wildflower of the coast and coastal ranges in California...
Rodríguez E, McFadden CS (April 2019). "A hybrid de novo assembly of the seapansy (Renilla muelleri) genome". GigaScience. 8 (4). doi:10.1093/gigascience/giz026...
1991) is an English actress and voice over artist known for portraying Pansy Parkinson in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Wilhelmina "Willow"...
Viola lutea, the mountain pansy, is a species of flowering plant in the Viola genus of the viola family, Violaceae. This evergreen perennial grows in...
species. The diamondback tritonia preys on soft corals including sea pens, seapansies, and sea whips. They feed on the young of these organisms as they are...
Birthday From the River's Depths Pansy's Prison Pies The Bowl-Bearer The Mother of Her Dreams Weary Walker's Woes Out of the Sea Superstitious Sammy Helen's...
leaves. Anthocyanins produce the purple color in blood oranges. A purple pansy. "Blue" hydrangea is often actually purple. Purple needlegrass is the state...
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