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Description
In an area of the Insulae's global ocean where floating algae cover the cover over a large area, many creatures come to feed. The algae attract large swarms of zooplankton. These in turn attract filter feeders, from filter feeding sky worms to an enormous mega tube. Some smaller jet tubes are also present.

Just as the vast masses of algae provide a rich food source for the zooplankton, the zooplankton provide a rich food source for a number of filter feeders.

Plunging through the algae mats from the air above are filter feeding sky worms. In these sky worms, the mouth tentacles common to the rest of the clade have atrophied away, being no longer of any real use. Their throat teeth have been modified into a series of baleen-like bristles. They will swim through the water with their mouths opening, heading right into the zooplankton swarms, catching and eating numerous tiny creatures with each mouthful.

There are also some sky worms that will in fact feed on the algae mats themselves rather than on the zooplankton the mats attract. Openings created in the mats by their feeding activities will often be exploited by the zooplankton feeding sky worms, as it easier to break through an algae mat in the areas where portions of the algae have already been moved out of the way.

The zooplankton swarms also attract Insulae's largest creatures- the mega tubes. A groups of enormous filter feeding jet tubes, the largest officially recorded examples of these have been measured at around 40 metres in length, making them even larger than Earth's blue whale. Unconfirmed reports exist of even larger ones far out in the open ocean and with the ocean being as vast as it is these can hardly be ruled out as incredible as they may sound. In any case. Like the filter-feeding sky worms they have baleen-like structures formed from modified throat teeth though theirs are not identical in structure, being a case of the same basic form of structure having independently evolved in more than one group. Needless to say, these oceanic behemoths consume a far greater amount of zooplankton than the vastly smaller filter feeding sky worms. A large mega tube can take in dozens of tonnes of water and plankton in just a single gulp.

Mega tube mating is a sight to behold. Like jet tubes in general, the male will use a special reproductive mouth tentacle which he inserts into a slit on the female's front ventral region. But in a mega tube this tentacle can be enormous, with the largest recorded examples being more than 3 metres in length. Mega tube females give birth to live young. This makes sense as the soft-shelled eggs of an egg laying jet tube would be particularly vulnerable at the size they would be if laid by something as massive as a mega tube. The average litter size is around 4-6 young and these are not cared for, being able to fend for themselves practically as soon as they are born. While much smaller than adults they are still impressively large and thus immune to predation from small to medium-sized hunters though they are still vulnerable to things like large predatory jet tubes.

Description
In an area of the Insulae's global ocean where floating algae cover the cover over a large area, many creatures come to feed. The algae attract large swarms of zooplankton. These in turn attract filter feeders, from filter feeding sky worms to an enormous mega tube. Some smaller jet tubes are also present.

Just as the vast masses of algae provide a rich food source for the zooplankton, the zooplankton provide a rich food source for a number of filter feeders.

Plunging through the algae mats from the air above are filter feeding sky worms. In these sky worms, the mouth tentacles common to the rest of the clade have atrophied away, being no longer of any real use. Their throat teeth have been modified into a series of baleen-like bristles. They will swim through the water with their mouths opening, heading right into the zooplankton swarms, catching and eating numerous tiny creatures with each mouthful.

There are also some sky worms that will in fact feed on the algae mats themselves rather than on the zooplankton the mats attract. Openings created in the mats by their feeding activities will often be exploited by the zooplankton feeding sky worms, as it easier to break through an algae mat in the areas where portions of the algae have already been moved out of the way.

The zooplankton swarms also attract Insulae's largest creatures- the mega tubes. A groups of enormous filter feeding jet tubes, the largest officially recorded examples of these have been measured at around 40 metres in length, making them even larger than Earth's blue whale. Unconfirmed reports exist of even larger ones far out in the open ocean and with the ocean being as vast as it is these can hardly be ruled out as incredible as they may sound. In any case. Like the filter-feeding sky worms they have baleen-like structures formed from modified throat teeth though theirs are not identical in structure, being a case of the same basic form of structure having independently evolved in more than one group. Needless to say, these oceanic behemoths consume a far greater amount of zooplankton than the vastly smaller filter feeding sky worms. A large mega tube can take in dozens of tonnes of water and plankton in just a single gulp.

Mega tube mating is a sight to behold. Like jet tubes in general, the male will use a special reproductive mouth tentacle which he inserts into a slit on the female's front ventral region. But in a mega tube this tentacle can be enormous, with the largest recorded examples being more than 3 metres in length. Mega tube females give birth to live young. This makes sense as the soft-shelled eggs of an egg laying jet tube would be particularly vulnerable at the size they would be if laid by something as massive as a mega tube. The average litter size is around 4-6 young and these are not cared for, being able to fend for themselves practically as soon as they are born. While much smaller than adults they are still impressively large and thus immune to predation from small to medium-sized hunters though they are still vulnerable to things like large predatory jet tubes.