Salps are pelagic animals, which means they spend their whole life cycle swimming in the water. Although each individual looks much like a blob of jelly, they are more closely related to animals with backbones (fish, birds, mammals etc.) than to real jellyfish.

Each species of salp has two forms:

• “solitaries”, single individuals
  not attached to others
• “aggregates”, attached to one
  another in chains.

view salp life cycle

Salps feed on small particles. Some species can retain particles as small as bacteria. They are analogous to biological vacuum cleaners. They can clog if there is too much particulate matter in the water. Salps can occur in high densities, dominating what is caught in nets.

There are many things that are still not understood about the ecology of salps, particularly for the species near Antarctica.

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