Size of large marine invertebrates

Range sponge Xestospongia muta >7m^3: tube worm Riftia pachyptila >3m: jellyfish Nemopilema nomurai >3m
Organism Invertebrates
Reference Smith et al., Body size evolution across the Geozoic, Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Vol. 44 :523-553, 2016 DOI: 10.1146/annurev-earth-060115-012147 link p.532 top paragraph
Primary Source McClain CR, Balk MA, Benfield MC, Branch TA, Chen C, et al. 2015. Sizing ocean giants: patterns of intraspecific size variation in marine megafauna. PeerJ 3: e715 doi: 10.7717/peerj.715.PubMed ID25649000
Comments P.532 top paragraph: "Life in Water: The sizes of oceanic organisms span 23 orders of magnitude in biovolume, from the tiny thermophilic Archaea Thermodiscus to the blue whale, Rorqualus musculus (BNID 113313 Table - link ). A complete survey of size distributions within the ocean has yet to be attempted. Indeed, even sampling the diversity of microbial and macroscopic life in the oceans is difficult. However, a good deal is known about the maximum sizes of marine animals (primary source), in part because of the public fascination with the largest organisms and in part from long-term fisheries records. Though the largest species of many modern chordate groups are well known (e.g., blue whale, whale shark), there are many impressively large marine invertebrates, including Xestospongia muta, a sponge with a biovolume of more than 7 m^3, Riftia pachyptila, a tube worm more than 3 m long, and Nemopilema nomurai, a jellyfish with a bell more than 3 m across (primary source). Documenting the smallest marine organisms is challenging given the difficulty of comprehensively sampling biodiversity in the oceans and because many of the smallest animals are parasitic."
Entered by Uri M
ID 113317