Symbion pandora
Symbion pandora
Symbion pandora is a tiny, jug-shaped aquatic animal that lives on the mouthparts of Norway lobsters. It is less than 0.5 mm wide and has a sac-like body with three different forms in a three-stage life cycle. Its discovery in 1995 by Danish scientists led to the creation of a new animal group called Cycliophora, named for its circular mouth. The name Symbion reflects its close relationship with the lobster, and pandora refers to a part of its life cycle that reminded researchers of Pandora’s box.
The animal has a bilateral, sac-like body and no body cavity (no coelom). It reproduces both asexually by budding and sexually. The sexual cycle starts when the lobster molts. A feeding stage buds a male, which attaches to another feeding stage and triggers it to bud a female, which is fertilized. The female can swim and finds another lobster, where a larva develops inside her. The female dies, and the larva escapes to begin a feeding stage on the new host.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 05:16 (CET).