Mean digestion times of individual prey items ranged
from 1.4 min for aloricate ciliates to 2 h for copepodites
(Table I). The small sample sizes of polychaete larvae
and heterotrophic dinoflagellates are representative of
their low frequency of occurrence in larval guts
(Table I). During a bloom event, consumption of multiple
Eutreptiella marina, an autotrophic euglenid, was
unavoidable, with 22400 cells observed in larval guts.
The digestion time of E. marina increased as the number
of flagellates in the larval guts increased (Fig. 1).