jellyfish essay in english

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jellyfish , any planktonic marine member of the class Scyphozoa (phylum Cnidaria), a group of invertebrate animals composed of about 200 described species, or of the class Cubozoa (approximately 20 species). The term is also frequently applied to certain other cnidarians (such as members of the class Hydrozoa) that have a medusoid (bell- or saucer-shaped) body form, as, for example, the hydromedusae and the siphonophores (including the Portuguese man-of-war). Unrelated forms such as comb jellies (phylum Ctenophora) and salps (phylum Chordata) are also referred to as jellyfish. Scyphozoan jellyfish can be divided into two types, those that are free-swimming medusae and those that are sessile (i.e., stem animals that are attached to seaweed and other objects by a stalk). The sessile polyplike forms constitute the order Stauromedusae.

Free-swimming scyphozoan jellyfish occur in all oceans and include the familiar disk-shaped animals that are often found drifting along the shoreline. Most live for only a few weeks, but some are known to survive a year or longer. The bodies of most range in size from about 2 to 40 cm (1 to 16 inches) in diameter; some species are considerably larger, however, with diameters of up to 2 metres (6.6 feet). Scyphozoan medusae consist of almost 99 percent water as a result of the composition of the jelly that forms the bulk in nearly all species. Most feed on copepods, fish larvae , and other small animals that they catch in their tentacles, which have stinging cells (nematocysts). Some, however, simply suspension feed, extracting minute animals and algae (phytoplankton) from the water. Like all cnidarians, their bodies are made up of two cellular layers, the ectoderm and the endoderm, between which lies the gelatinous mesoglea . In jellyfish the transparent mesoglea layer is quite thick.

The life cycle of free-swimming scyphozoan jellyfish typically consists of three stages. A sessile polyp ( scyphistoma ) stage asexually buds off young medusae from its upper end, with each such ephyra growing into an adult. The adults are either male or female, but in some species they change their sex as they age. In many species, normal fusion of egg and sperm results in an embryo that is brooded in the gut of the adult until it becomes a ciliated planula larva, but in some this development takes place in the sea. After the planula larva leaves its parent, it lives for a time in the plankton and eventually attaches to a rock or other solid surface, where it grows into a new scyphistoma. Such a life cycle characterizes the order Semaeostomeae , which contains some 50 species of mainly coastal-water jellyfish, several of which have very wide geographic ranges. Included among these are members of the genera Aurelia and Chrysaora and the big red jellyfish, Tiburonia granrojo (subfamily Tiburoniinae), one of only three species of jellyfish that lack tentacles.

The order Coronatae includes about 30 species of mostly deep-sea jellyfish, often maroon in colour . A deep circular groove delimits the central part of the bell-shaped body from the periphery , which is divided into broad flaps, or lappets. The marginal tentacles are large and solid. Some species are known to have a scyphistoma stage, but the life cycle of most of the forms has yet to be described. The coronate jellyfish are the most primitive of the present-day scyphozoans and are thought to be descended directly from the fossil form Conulata , which flourished between about 180 and 600 million years ago. Some of the known sessile stages form branched colonies, which were once separately identified under the name Stephanoscyphus .

The order Rhizostomeae includes some 80 described species. In these jellyfish the frilly projections ( oral arms ) that extend down from the underside of the body are fused, obliterating the mouth and forming a spongy area used in filter feeding . Marginal tentacles are lacking, and the gelatinous bell is firm and warty. In species whose life cycles are known, there is a typical benthic (bottom-dwelling) scyphistoma stage. Most members of the order are vigorous swimmers. Species of Cassiopea , the upside-down jellyfish, however, swim infrequently and sit inverted in tropical shallows, exposing their photosynthetic symbiotic algae to sunlight. The group Rhizostomeae is found mainly in shallow tropical to subtropical seas in the Indo-Pacific region, but members of the genus Rhizostoma, also called football jellyfish, often inhabit cooler waters, and Cotylorhiza is common in the Mediterranean.

The fourth order, Stauromedusae , comprises some 30 described species of nonswimming, stalked jellies. These species occur chiefly in cooler waters. They are goblet-shaped and fixed by a basal stalk; the mouth is situated at the upper end. Ranging from 1 to 10 cm (0.4 to 4 inches) in diameter, the body has a tetradiate design and typically bears eight clusters of tentacles. Some species can detach and resettle. Stauromedusae usually feed on small marine animals and live for several years. Development is direct from a larva into an adult. The polyp stage is suppressed.

The class Cubozoa contains two orders, Carybdeida and Chirodropida. Together, both orders comprise about 20 described species. Although some reach a diameter of 25 cm (10 inches), most range between 2 to 4 cm (1 to 2 inches). The jelly is rather spherical but squared off along the edges, giving rise to the common name of box jellies. The genera Chironex and Chiropsalmus, commonly called sea wasps , occur widely from Queensland northward to about Malaya. These forms have remarkably sophisticated eyes, and they are dangerously venomous; a moderate sting can cause death within a few minutes. In all the box jellies so far studied, the polyp stage produces but a single medusa. Through the process of budding , polyps emerge from a medusa or from another polyp. Essentially, a single planula larva may produce numerous, genetically identical medusae.

See also cnidarian ; hydroid ; medusa ; Portuguese man-of-war .

Jellyfish have drifted along on ocean currents for millions of years, even before dinosaurs lived on the Earth. The jellylike creatures pulse along on ocean currents and are abundant in cold and warm ocean water, in deep water, and along coastlines. But despite their name, jellyfish aren't actually fish—they're invertebrates, or animals with no backbones.

Jellyfish have tiny stinging cells in their tentacles to stun or paralyze their prey before they eat them. Inside their bell-shaped body is an opening that is its mouth. They eat and discard waste from this opening.

As jellyfish squirt water from their mouths they are propelled forward. Tentacles hang down from the smooth baglike body and sting their prey.

Jellyfish stings can be painful to humans and sometimes very dangerous. But jellyfish don't purposely attack humans. Most stings occur when people accidentally touch a jellyfish, but if the sting is from a dangerous species, it can be deadly. Jellyfish digest their food very quickly. They wouldn't be able to float if they had to carry a large, undigested meal around.

They dine on fish , shrimp, crabs and tiny plants. Sea turtles relish the taste of jellyfish. Some jellyfish are clear, but others are in vibrant colors such as pink, yellow, blue, and purple, and often are luminescent. The Chinese have fished jellyfish for 1,700 years. They are considered a delicacy and are used in Chinese medicine.

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Jellyfish: our complex relationship with the oceans’  anti-heroes

PhD Candidate, Geography, Queen Mary University of London

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Matthew Beach receives funding from Queen Mary, University of London. He has also previously received funding from the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers).

Queen Mary University of London provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK.

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Ding! The courier hands me an unassuming brown box with “live animals” plastered on the side. I begin carefully unboxing. The cardboard exterior gives way to a white polystyrene clamshell, cloistering a pearly sphere-shaped, water-filled bag. Lightly pulsing, I spot them: three cannonball jellyfish ( Stomolophus meleagris ). Each the size of a 50-pence coin.

After months of waiting, my first gelatinous companions had arrived and I was finally ready to begin my research on human connections with jellyfish.

Cannonball jellyfish are an unusual pet choice . Whether stinging beachgoers, clogging power station intake pipes, or outcompeting more popular ocean wildlife, jellyfish are often labelled nuisances .

Despite their poor press, they have a growing community of admirers. Thousands of people drift to aquariums each year to admire jellyfish. Darting around and bumping into one another, tentacles circling or gently pulsing they inspire delight in their guests. The Californian Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Jellyfish: Living Art was the organisation’s most popular and long-running exhibit since opening in 1984.

Jellyfish not only have the ability to captivate us. It may also benefit our health . A study has shown eating cannonball jellyfish, for example, can reduce the effects of arthritis – albeit so far only in a small group of rats.

A biological wonder

Perhaps more importantly, however, we can learn a lot from studying the incredible biology of jellyfish. For example, immortal jellyfish ( Turritopsis dohrnii ) sidestep the ageing process by reverting to their polyp stage.

Crystal jellies’ ( Aequorea victoria ) green fluorescent protein (GFP), found in organs within the animal’s bell, allows scientists to study gene expression. Gene expression is the instruction manual DNA follows, for example, to become proteins. This process can be quite complex and difficult to follow. But the GFP lights up under ultraviolet light, which helps scientists map the different processes a cell goes through as it follows DNA instructions.

Jellyfish deserve more of the public’s attention. They are a major player in the marine food web and have complex relationships with other wildlife. For example, cannonball jellyfish have a fascinating relationship with young spider crabs ( Libinia spp. ) that live inside their bells. This gives the crabs security and research suggests jellyfish hosting crabs grow larger than those without, but it’s not clear why.

Some scientists say jellyfish are climate-change survivors , which they don’t mean as a compliment. Despite rising temperatures, they sometimes “ jellify ” the ocean because of their sudden population “blooms”. However, they have their own climate-change-related problems .

For example, temperature increases in Palau’s Jellyfish Lake in the South Pacific have been linked to the disappearance of golden jellyfish ( Mastigias papua ). Jellyfish blooms are also often followed by crashes in their populations, which are caused by several overlapping factors such as food shortage, predation, parasites, disease, weather and getting stranded on beaches.

Sea curiosities

There are so many reasons humans should make an effort to understand jellyfish better. Research suggests ocean literacy is best cultivated through hands-on experience and personal interactions . But the technology aquariums use to bring jellyfish to the masses limit how involved audiences can be with the animals.

Although scientists have argued technology can damage people’s relationships with other animals, it can help us reconnect with our environment too.

Because jellyfish are 95% water , they are extremely sensitive to their surroundings. Most kit tanks (often referred to as nano aquariums ) hold a small water volume, which makes it difficult to maintain the right conditions such as pH, ammonia levels and temperature.

Bacteria must be introduced into the tank to control jellyfish waste (ammonia) by converting it into nitrite and then nitrate. These bacteria are similar to the oxygen-producing microbes in the ocean that form the basis of all ocean food webs , and help maintain the ocean cycle . The nitrate is removed by replacing small amounts of aquarium water with purified salt water.

As I discovered, if these conditions are not maintained, the jellyfish can suffer from bell holes (small circular tears in jellyfishes’ bells) and eversion (when the outer portion of the bell inverts). When aquarium jellyfish suffer eversion , high water temperature is often the culprit. Learning how to care for jellyfish in these kits is learning about their complex relationships to our oceans.

The closer we feel to our environment, the more likely we are to fight to protect it. So next time you visit the seaside or your local aquarium, try to slow down, absorb the experience and see if you can learn something new about jellyfish and wider ocean wildlife.

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Meet the fried egg jellyfish. Cotylorhiza tuberculata can reach up to 40cm across and is found in Aegean, Adriatic and Mediterranean seas. © Fernando M. Elkspera/ Shuttertock

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Jellyfish: The smart stinging creatures drifting through our oceans

Jellyfish have survived for over 500 million years, making them more ancient than the dinosaurs .

Today these otherworldly creatures can be found around the world, from coastal shallows to the ocean deeps. 

Jellyfish are invertebrates – animals that don’t have a backbone – and belong to a group called Cnidaria. Some of their closest relatives include colourful corals and anemones.  

“Jellyfish are gelatinous and jelly-like,” explains Miranda Lowe CBE , our Principal Curator of Crustacea and Cnidaria.

“They have a curved, bell-shaped body with tentacles hanging down from the underside. On this underside they also have a mouth and four oral arms, which are thicker than the tentacles.”

The moon jellyfish,  Aurelia aurita, is the most common jellyfish species in UK seas. © HelloRF Zcool/ Shutterstock

Jellyfish come in incredible shapes, colours and sizes.  Most jellyfishes’ bell-shaped bodies are between two centimetres and 40 centimetres across. However, some species can grow to more than two metres in diameter, with thin trailing tentacles that are even longer than that.

Jellyfish have radial symmetry, meaning that if you sliced a jellyfish down the middle, the parts would be symmetrical, like the segments of an orange.

These cnidarians are famous for their stinging abilities. The intensity of the sting varies by species.

Some jellyfish can also generate their own light, called bioluminescence – further adding to their otherworldly beauty.

This is a model of the atolla jellyfish, Atolla wyvillei . This species uses bioluminescence like a burglar alarm. When under threat it makes swirling patterns of light to attract larger predators that may attack its attacker. This gives the jellyfish a chance to get away.

Do jellyfish have brains?

Jellyfish don’t have bones, brains, hearts, teeth or blood.

However, what they do have is a network of nerves called a nerve net. This allows them to process information including light levels, temperature and chemical changes in the water around them.

How many species of jellyfish are there?

Jellyfish are sometimes called sea jellies. They belong to a group called Medusozoa which is divided into four classes: Hydrozoa, Scyphozoa, Cubozoa and Staurozoa.

Comb jellies are also sometimes included in the broad sea jellies category. But these animals aren’t cnidarians. Instead, they belong to group of organisms called Ctenophora.

There are approximately 200 described species of scyphozoans. Most are free-swimming species with the characteristic bell-shaped body, also called a medusa.

Cubozoans are more commonly known as box jellyfish. They differ from scyphozoan jellyfish because of their distinctive cube-shaped medusae and their tentacles are arranged around each of the four bottom corners of their body.

There are around 45 species of box jellyfish and they include some of the deadliest venomous animals on Earth. They are also more active hunters than scyphozoans. The largest species, Chironex fleckeri , has been recorded swimming at around five centimetres per second. 

Unlike other jellyfishes, box jellyfish have clusters of complex eyes on each corner of their cube-shaped body. © Katherine Wallis/ Shutterstock

There are some 3,600 species of hydrozoans. These are typically smaller than scyphozoan jellyfish. The polyp stage of their lives is usually more conspicuous than the small adult jellies.

However, not all hydrozoans are considered jellyfish. For example, the famous Portuguese man o’ war is part of the class Hydrozoa but is known as a siphonophore. They are made up of groups of small animals living and functioning together as a colony with a mixture of polyp-like and jellyfish-like parts. 

Physalia physalis , also known as the bluebottle and Portuguese man o’ war, is a colony of four types of highly modified individuals working together to form a beautiful but fearsome hunter. © NFKenyon/ Shutterstock

Staurozoans are also known as stalked jellyfish. They resemble their cousins the sea anemone or coral more closely than other jellyfish groups. Rather than drifting through the water, these jellies live attached to seaweed, rocks and other objects. 

There are around 50 species of stalked jellyfish. Most live in shallow and intertidal water, though some have been found more than 3,000m beneath the surface. © RLS Photo/ Shutterstock

How do jellyfish move?

Jellyfish often allow themselves to drift along in the water, but they can use their oral arms to pulse along in the ocean current if needed. But they are not strong swimmers. This is why jellyfish sometimes get washed up on the beach in large numbers after a storm.

Did you know?

Most jellyfish live for only a few weeks, though some can live for a year or longer.

What do jellyfish eat and how do they do it?

A jellyfish eats by stinging its prey and using the oral arms to waft the food towards its mouth – which is also its anus – and into its stomach.

Jellyfish eat small fish, fish larvae, shrimp, tiny crustaceans such as krill and copepods, small shrimp-like organisms called amphipods and tiny plants such as algae. They will sometimes eat other sea jellies.

They also forage food from other animals, notes Miranda. “They utilise the scraps of larger predators in the food chain such as sharks and turtles .”

Jellyfish are eaten by leatherback sea turtles, fish such as ocean sunfish and grey triggerfish, some seabirds such as fulmars, whale sharks and some species of crabs and whales .

They’re also eaten by people . Some species of jellyfish are considered a delicacy in countries in East Asia including Japan and China. 

In China, some species of jellyfish have been fished and eaten as a delicacy for around 1,700 years. © KOHUKU/ Shutterstock

In fact, jellyfish may become an increasingly common food source around the world, as overfishing is making some fishes harder to come by. 

But researchers have noted that peoples' willingness to include jellyfish in their diet is affected by a variety of factors, including age, gender and even travelling habits. Food neophobia – the reluctance to eat new foods – is another barrier, found across consumers in Italy , Canada and Latin America .

How do jellyfish sting?

“Jellyfish have stinging cells called nematocytes,” explains Dr Ronald Jenner , our Principal Researcher in venom evolution.

“They have thousands of these along their tentacles. The stinging cells contain a microscopic harpoon filled with toxins. When a jellyfish hunts, or wants to defend itself, these harpoons can be triggered to shoot out, penetrate the skin of the victim and inject toxins into them.”

Jellyfish stings can cause a burning pain, so people often reach for ice to soothe them. However, scientists have reported that using a heat pack or dunking the sting in water as hot as you can comfortably stand may actually be better. “It’s counterintuitive, but it can bring relief,” says Ronald.

Jellyfish stings

Visit the NHS website for information on what to do if you are stung by a jellyfish or other sea creature. 

But not all jellyfish sting and some jellyfish stings aren’t harmful to humans.

Some creatures take advantage of jellyfishes’ stings to protect themselves from predators . So-called ‘Medusa’ fish hang out among the tentacles of a jellyfish to nibble on scraps and avoid being eaten by bigger fish.

How do jellyfish reproduce?

Jellyfish change form significantly as they move through their life cycle.

“Jellyfish release eggs and sperm into the ocean where they get fertilised,” explains Miranda.

“The fertilised egg changes into a free-swimming larva. Then the larva matures into a polyp, which finds a hard surface such as rock to fix itself to. These polyps mature until they develop and bud off into a young free-swimming jellyfish.”

Interesting jellyfish species

Jellyfish are a fascinating group. Have you come across these species before?

Lion’s mane jellyfish 

This striking jellyfish is so named for the way its flowing underparts resemble a lion’s mane. © RLS Photo/ Shutterstock

The Lion’s mane jellyfish, Cyanea capillata , is the largest known jellyfish. They’re found in the Arctic, North Pacific and North Atlantic oceans. They’re often seen in waters around the UK and Ireland.

The lion's mane jellyfish's tentacles can reach over 30 metres in length – that’s longer than a blue whale .

Upside-down jellyfish

The upside-down jellyfish and its resident algae are an example of a symbiotic relationship between two organisms. © Mr. James Kelley/ Shutterstock

Upside-down jellyfish belong to the genus Cassiopea.

These clever jellyfish have algae living on their underside. They will often sit inverted in tropical shallows so their algae can photosynthesise. The by-products of photosynthesis provide most of Cassiopea ’s food requirements.

Immortal jellyfish

The immortal jellyfish’s extremely rare ability to revert to an earlier stage in its life cycle is called transdifferentiation. © Karajohn/ Shutterstock

The remarkable hydrozoan Turritopsis dohrnii is considered biologically immortal . It can revert from its mature adult form into an earlier stage of its life cycle and redevelop into a new mature jellyfish when conditions are more favourable.

Fried egg jellyfish

With its yolk-like body, this jellyfish gets its common name from its resemblance to a fried egg – though there is more than one species that has earned this moniker. © Alexey Masliy/ Shutterstock

The fried egg jellyfish – Cotylorhiza tuberculata – is named for its distinctive domed, yolk-yellow body.

This jellyfish is mostly found in the Aegean, Adriatic and Mediterranean seas. It has rather short oral arms and feeds mainly on zooplankton and other jellyfish.

What are jellyfish blooms?

For the most part, jellyfish are solitary creatures, drifting through the ocean alone. However, sometimes huge masses of jellyfish, known as blooms, occur. These are the result of an explosion in a jellyfish population.

Human influence is often involved in this phenomenon. For instance, overfishing can deplete the ocean of a jellyfish’s natural predators, allowing them to reproduce in disproportionate quantities.

Chemical run-off that finds its way into the ocean can also provide nutrients that cause a boom in jellyfish populations.

Jellyfish blooms can chaos havoc – they’ve been known to clog up machinery in coastal power plants. © Ethan Daniels/ Shutterstock

How are jellyfish affected by climate change?

“Jellyfish are useful to monitor as a baseline indicator of what is going on in our oceans ,” says Miranda. “Because they are 95% water, jellyfish are very sensitive to chemical imbalances. That’s why we all have to be mindful of what we are putting into the oceans.”

This includes plastic waste . Jellyfish consume tiny organisms, so they can be an entry point for microplastics into the ocean food chain. From jellyfish, microplastics find their way into bigger organisms such as turtles and tuna.

By cutting down on single-use plastics, we can all help to ensure jellyfish, and the animals that rely on them, survive in our oceans for millions of years to come.

Find out more by listening to episode six of the Our Broken Planet podcast.

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Jellyfish Facts!

Join us as we travel the oceans far and wide with these electric jellyfish facts.

Join us as we travel the oceans far and wide with these electric jellyfish facts !

Fast jellyfish facts

Phylum : Cnidaria Class : Scyphozoa Classification : Invertebrate IUCN status : Not evaluated Lifespan (in wild) : One year Weight : Up to 2kg Body size : 2cm to 2m Top speed : 8km/h Diet : Fish, shrimp, crabs, tiny plants and even other species of jellyfish Habitat : Oceans Range :

Jellyfish have been around for millions of years , even before dinosaurs lived on the Earth. Pulsing along on our ocean currents, these jelly-like creatures can be found in waters both cold and warm, deep and shallow and along coastlines, too. Some jellyfish are clear, but others are vibrant colours of pink, yellow, blue and purple. They can be bioluminescent , too, which means they produce their own light!

Jellyfish have no brain, heart, bones or eyes. They are made up of a smooth, bag-like body and tentacles armed with tiny, stinging cells. These incredible invertebrates use their stinging tentacles to stun or paralyse prey before gobbling it up.

The jellyfish’s mouth is found in the centre of its body. From this small opening it both eats and discards waste. And it serves another purpose, too – by squirting a jet of water from its mouth, the jellyfish can propel forward! Cool, eh?

Jellyfish digest their food, which consists of fish, shrimp, crabs and tiny plants, very quickly. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be able to float, being weighed down by the large, undigested grub in their body.

The jellyfish itself provides a tasty meal for other ocean creatures, particularly sea turtles , who like to guzzle them up regularly. In some cultures around the world, people eat jellyfish, too. In China, they are considered a delicacy, and are also used in Chinese medicine.

Jellyfish stings can be painful to humans and, from certain species, they can even be deadly. Although these magnificent marine creatures don’t purposely attack humans, most stings occur when people accidentally touch a jellyfish.

Picture credits Bioflourescent jellyfish: Getty Images UK. Close-up of purple jellyfish: Bruce H. Obison. Jellyfish with long tentacles: Natursports, Dreamstime. Yellow jellyfish: Tim Hester, Dreamstime. Map showing jellyfish distribution: National Geographic Maps. 

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jellyfishes are amazing

Wow great thank you so much!

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jellyfish are awesomly bad animals

there is a type of jelly fish that lives forever. Its called the immortal jellyfish!

Jellyfish are amazing and awesome. I liked the pictures

It was very informative about how the magnificent live , eat and there body structure

Great facts

It was interesting

I'm so excited!

I don’t know what you think about jellyfish

Nice to know

I learnt alot of things about jellyfish on this website great job keep it up

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Doing project needed info thanks

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LIVING ELECTRICITY!!!!!!!

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This information is very useful.This website is also very useful.Thank you 'NATIONAL GEOGRAPHY KIDS'

love these jellyfish just didn`t like it when i got stung in India .

I think the Jellyfish facts were very informative and it was just what I was looking for. Thank you.:)

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i think the jellyfish article was cool and when I went to the beach I saw a huge jellyfish!

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12 Fascinating Facts About Jellyfish

These odd animals are ancient, adaptable, and in some cases, possibly immortal

• SUNY Oswego
• University of Houston

Treehugger / Ellen Lindner

• Animal Rights
• Endangered Species

Jellyfish are some of the Earth's most ancient extant animals. They're also immensely diverse—most organisms that are called jellyfish are part of the phylum Cnidaria , which includes more than 10,000 species . Needless to say, they occur in abundant numbers all over the world, in cold and warm water, deep in the sea or near the surface. Most people are afraid to swim alongside them because of their painful sting, but not all jellyfish threaten injury.

Find out 12 facts about the oddly charismatic gelatinous ocean dwellers, from their literal lack of heart to the rumor that they're immortal, below.

• Common Name : Jellyfish
• Scientific Name :  Cnidaria
• Average Lifespan in the Wild : 3 to 6 months
• Average Lifespan in Captivity : 1 to 3 years
• IUCN Red List Status : Least concern to critically endangered, depending on the species
• Current Population : Unknown

1. Jellyfish Could Be Older Than Dinosaurs

Jellyfish have no bones, so fossils are hard to come by. Nevertheless, scientists have evidence these creatures have been bobbing along in the world's oceans for at least 500 million years. In fact, it's likely the jellyfish lineage goes back even further, possibly 700 million years. That's roughly three times the age of the first dinosaurs.

Some of the oldest known jellyfish fossils have been found in Utah, dating back to when the entire U.S. West was under the Pacific Ocean.

2. They're Adapting Well to Climate Change

Unlike most marine creatures, jellyfish are thriving in our oceans despite marine heat waves, ocean acidification, overfishing, and various other human influences. While corals, oysters, and any marine organisms that build shells are considered the biggest losers of increasingly acidic oceans, jellyfish don't seem to be as susceptible.

But as the climate crisis worsens, experts expect to see jellyfish populations increase in some areas and decrease in others. Mostly, they expect to see an imbalance between jellyfish and other organisms. For example, because jellyfish are more resilient to low-oxygen environments, they could soon far outnumber plankton, which need more oxygen and make up the bulk of the jellyfish's diet.

3. They Aren't Really Fish

Gerard Soury / Getty Images

One look at a jellyfish and this might seem rather obvious, but they aren't actually fish. They are invertebrates from the phylum Cnidaria and are so varied as a taxonomic group that many scientists have taken to simply referring to them as "gelatinous zooplankton."

Jellyfish do not have scales, gills, or fins like fish. Instead, they swim by opening and closing their "bells."

4. Jellyfish Are 98% Water

The human body is composed of 60% water and the jellyfish's 98%. When they wash ashore, they can disappear after just a few hours, their bodies promptly evaporating into the air. They have a rudimentary nervous system, a loose network of nerves located in the epidermis called a "nerve net," and no brain. They also don't have a heart; their gelatinous bodies are so thin they can be oxygenated solely by diffusion.

5. They Can Have Eyes

Despite their simple body design, some jellyfish have vision. In fact, for a few species, their vision can be surprisingly complex. For instance, the box jellyfish has 24 "eyes," two of which are capable of seeing in color. It's also believed this animal's complicated array of visual sensors makes it one of the few creatures in the world to have a full 360-degree view of its environment.

6. Some Jellyfish Might Be Immortal

At least one species of jellyfish, Turritopsis nutricula , may be able to cheat death. When threatened, this species is capable of undergoing cellular transdifferentiation, a process whereby the organism's cells essentially become new again.

This jellyfish is colloquially called the "immortal" jellyfish and it inhabits the warm waters of the Caribbean and Mediterranean. Its unique transdifferentiation ability is a major subject of research, as it could help the medical field understand how to turn cancerous cells into noncancerous cells like muscles, nerves, or skin.

7. They Eat Where They Poop

It might not sound very appetizing, but jellyfish don't use separate orifices for eating and pooping. They have one orifice that does the job of both the mouth and the anus. The jellyfish is known as a simple or "primitive" animal, and its lack of a dual-hole system—which developed way down the line of evolution—is proof of that.

Still, the multifunctional gut opening is being constantly studied. In 2019, scientists discovered that one jellyfish species sprouts a new anus every time it poops.

8. They Rarely Travel in Groups

Aonip / Getty Images

Many refer to a group of jellyfish as a bloom or a swarm, but they can also be called a "smack." In any case, seeing a group of jellyfish is rare considering these animals are mostly lone drifters. They're solitary animals, only clumping together when they're all following a singular food source or because they're traveling in the same water current.

9. They Are Among Earth's Deadliest Creatures

All jellyfish have nematocysts, or stinging structures, but the power of their stings can vary widely depending on the species. The most venomous jellyfish in the world is probably the box jellyfish, capable of killing an adult human in just a few minutes with a single sting. Each box jellyfish reportedly carries enough venom to kill more than 60 humans.

To make matters worse, their stings are excruciatingly painful—it's said the pain could kill you before the venom does. On the bright side, that knowledge has helped Australian researchers to develop a potential antidote for box jellyfish stings.

10. Jellyfish Can Be Tiny or Enormous

James R.D. Scott / Getty Images

Some jellyfish are so tiny they are practically invisible floating in the ocean's currents. The smallest are those in the genera Staurocladia and Eleutheria , which have bell disks from just 0.5 millimeters to a few millimeters in diameter.

By contrast, the lion's mane jellyfish, Cyanea capillata , can extend its tentacles as far as 120 feet. The world's largest jellyfish by weight and diameter is thought to be the titanic Nomura's jellyfish, Nemopilema nomurai , which can dwarf a human diver. These beasts can have a bell diameter of 6.5 feet and weigh as much as 440 pounds.

11. Some Are Edible

You won't find them on many restaurant menus, but jellyfish are edible and are eaten as a delicacy in some places, like Japan and Korea. In fact, the Japanese have transformed jellyfish into candy: A sweet and salty caramel made out of sugar, starch syrup, and jellyfish powder has been produced to make use of the jellyfish that often plague the waters there. More often, they're served in salads, fried into crunchy noodles, or eaten with soy sauce like sushi.

12. They Have Been to Space

NASA first started sending jellyfish to space aboard the Columbia space shuttle back in the early 1990s to test how they might adapt to a zero-gravity environment. Why? Interestingly, both humans and jellyfish rely on specialized gravity-sensitive calcium crystals to orient themselves. (These crystals are located inside the inner ear in the case of humans and along the bottom edge of the jellyfish bodies.) So, studying how jellyfish manage in space can reveal clues about how humans might also fare.

Jellyfish do actually have two distinct sexes (and the occasional hermaphrodite), the most distinct difference being the color of their gonads. Males' sex glands are pink and females' are brown.

Jellyfish have a strange reproduction system. The medusa (its mature form, when it's in its sexual phase) produces sexually while the polyp (the stalked phase, in which it's attached to coral reef) reproduces asexually. Polyps develop into medusas, but the process can take several months to years.

Jellyfish swim alongside humans all the time without stinging them, so you shouldn't worry. However, if you're adamant about preventing jellyfish stings, you could avoid the water during jellyfish season, which happens to be the entire swimming season from mid-spring through late summer. A better idea might be to wear a wetsuit.

Although it's been long said that peeing on a jellyfish sting will help relieve the burn, experts don't recommend this. It could actually aggravate the stingers and make the pain worse. Instead, rinse the sting with seawater, remove the spines, soak the area in warm water for at least 30 minutes, and leave the rest to ibuprofen.

" Jellyfish and Comb Jellies ." Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History . 2018.

" Voyager: How Are Jellyfish Connected to Climate Change? " University of California San Diego Scripps Institution of Oceanography . 2019.

Tamm, Sidney L. " Defecation by the ctenophore Mnemiopsis leidyi occurs with an ultradian rhythm through a single transient anal pore ." Invertebrate Biology . 2019.

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Introduction

Among the most unusual of marine, or ocean-dwelling, animals are the jellyfish, or jellies. They have no heart or brain, and some can even glow from their own light. Despite their name, jellyfish are not fish. Instead, they are invertebrates , or animals without backbones. They are characterized by their jellylike bodies and wicked sting. Jellyfish belong to the phylum Cnidaria , which also includes corals , hydras , Portuguese men-of-war, and sea anemones .

A key characteristic of jellyfish is the presence of venomous stinging structures called nematocysts. These structures are embedded within long tentacles. The tentacles capture prey that have been paralyzed by the venom of the nematocysts. In adult humans, a sting from most jellyfish may cause only mild pain or a rash that is easily treated. Some stings produce more serious reactions, including severe pain, muscle cramps, swelling, or heart problems that can be life-threatening. The sting of some box jellyfish is dangerously venomous and can produce death within minutes.

Humans use jellyfish in a couple of different ways. People in some parts of the world eat jellyfish. In many places in Asia, for example, people consider them a delicacy. In addition, researchers are investigating jellyfish and how they can be used in medicine. Some scientists, for example, are studying jellyfish venom and its potential to slow the growth of certain cancers .

Scientists divide jellyfish into two main groups. There are approximately 200 known species in the Class Scyphozoa, or “true” jellyfish. These include the moon jellyfish (genus Aurelia ) and the sea nettles (genus Chrysaora ). The Class Cubozoa, or box jellyfish, includes about 20 known species.

Distribution and Habitat

Jellyfish are found in all oceans. They are most abundant in tropical waters. However, some species, such as lion’s mane jellyfish ( Cyanea capillata ), prefer colder seas. Many jellyfish live at or near the sea surface. Some prefer coastal waters, though many are found in the open ocean.

Physical Characteristics

Jellyfish species show great diversity in color. Species may be white, orange, yellow, pink, red, purple, or blue. Moon jellyfish are translucent, as are all box jellyfish. Some jellyfish are bioluminescent, meaning that they can emit light in the dark.

The body of a jellyfish for most of its life cycle is shaped like a bell or umbrella. In box jellyfish the bell has four distinct sides. The bell generally ranges from 1 to 16 inches (2 to 40 centimeters) in diameter, though some species are smaller and some are much larger. Extending from the body of most jellyfish are long tentacles. The number and length of tentacles vary across species. A few species of jellyfish lack tentacles. Among these is the big red jellyfish ( Tiburonia granrojo ). It uses long, fleshy “feeding arms” to grasp prey and wrestle it to the mouth.

The largest of all jellies is the lion’s mane jellyfish. Its bell may measure as much as 8 feet (2.4 meters) across. The underside contains 8 clusters of tentacles. Each cluster may have as many as 150 tentacles. The tentacles in the largest lion’s mane jellyfish measure about 120 feet (36.5 meters) long. One of the smallest jellies is the Irukandji jellyfish ( Carukia barnesi ), which measures about 0.8 inch (2 centimeters) long. This box jellyfish is found near Australia and in other warm waters of the Pacific Ocean.

The jellyfish’s tentacles are embedded with venomous stinging cells. Inside each cell is a coiled, hollow, dartlike structure that is often barbed. This structure is called a nematocyst. When an animal (or person) brushes against the jellyfish’s tentacles, the cells eject the nematocysts. The nematocysts sting the animal, releasing venom to paralyze it.

Most jellyfish stings to humans produce mild discomfort or a rash and itching. Some box jellyfish, however, have a painful sting that can prove fatal to humans. Among the largest and deadliest of the box jellyfish is the Australian box jellyfish, or sea wasp ( Chironex fleckeri ). It is found in the waters along the northern coast of Australia.

As invertebrates, jellyfish lack a backbone. The body has two tissue layers—an outer ectoderm, or epidermis, and an inner endoderm, or gastrodermis. Sandwiched between these layers is the jellylike mesoglea, which provides bulk and support for the animal. The mesoglea does not contain any cells and is composed mainly of water. In fact, a jellyfish is made up of more than 95 percent water.

Jellyfish do not have a head. They also lack a brain, a heart and a circulatory system , and organs for respiration and excretion. The mouth is located on the underside of the body. It connects to a central cavity lined with hairlike structures called cilia that help transport food and other materials throughout the body. Jellyfish also discard waste from the body through the mouth. Simple muscles on the underside contract and expand the body much like the closing and opening of an umbrella, enabling the animal to swim. A network of nerves runs beneath the lining of the body and coordinates the muscles.

Some true jellyfish have simple eyes around the edge of the body. These eyes are able to detect light. In box jellyfish, the eyes are more complex and may include lenses, corneas, and retinas. These jellyfish are able to see blurry images.

Some true jellyfish can swim freely. Others tend to drift with the current, though they can propel themselves and change direction as needed. In contrast, box jellyfish are strong and agile swimmers.

Jellyfish are an important part of the ocean food web . Most jellyfish feed on tiny, floating organisms called plankton . Large jellyfish may prey on other jellyfish as well as on small fish and crustaceans , including shrimp and crabs. Jellyfish use their tentacles to paralyze the prey and bring it to their mouths. Jellyfish in turn are a key food source for many sea animals, especially larger fish and sea turtles. The ocean sunfish ( Mola mola ) and leatherback turtle ( Dermochelys coriacea ) are important predators of jellyfish.

Jellyfish blooms occur occasionally throughout the oceans. Blooms are large groups—possibly numbering in the millions—of jellyfish. Blooms occur naturally, often when ocean and wind currents push jellyfish into one area. They may also occur when a species has a sudden and rapid increase in reproduction. Scientists are investigating whether human-related activity, such as the overfishing of jellyfish predators or global warming , can lead to an increase in the number or intensity of blooms.

Most jellyfish live anywhere from a few weeks to several months, though a few species may live a year or longer. Jellyfish have a few stages in their life cycle, but the two main ones involve reproduction, or the generation of offspring. These are the medusa and polyp stages. Each of these stages has a different body form. The medusa is the adult form of the jellyfish in the familiar bell or cube shape. The polyp is a nonswimming form that attaches to a hard surface. The jellyfish spends most of its life as a medusa.

The medusa reproduces sexually, meaning it produces eggs and sperm. Most jellyfish species have external fertilization. The adult females release eggs and the adult males release sperm into the water. When the sperm reach the eggs, the eggs are fertilized. In some jellyfish the male releases sperm into the water. While feeding, the female ingests the sperm to fertilize the eggs internally. Either way, the fertilized egg develops into a free-swimming larva called a planula. Each planula eventually attaches itself to a rock or the ocean floor and develops into a stalklike polyp form.

The polyp is an asexual stage, meaning that it can reproduce without eggs and sperm. Polyps are able to clone themselves. The new individuals arise from bits of tissue that are budded off. The polyps of true jellyfish release many buds. Each is released as an immature form that then swims away and matures into a medusa. In the box jellyfish, the polyp may only produce a single medusa. The ability of a jellyfish to undergo both a sexual phase and an asexual phase in its life cycle is known as alternation of generations.

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Tips on How to Write a Biology Essay: Learn from the Example of Jellyfish Essay

How to Write a Biology Essay

In this article, we will guide you on how to write a perfect biology essay from scratch. You’ll find various tips to help you excel in writing your essay and creating a paper worth the highest grades. We also prepared a jellyfish essay example for you, so it can be easier to enhance all the specifics and structure of this kind of paper.

What is Biology Essay

A biology essay is a student-written work where you present arguments and ideas about a particular biological topic. The essay on biology can take different forms like argumentative, cause-and-effect, descriptive, detailed analysis, or ‘how-to’ instruction, depending on the professor’s guidelines and writer’s preferences. 

A descriptive paper can explain a biological subject, while an argumentative one provides evidence to support a point of view. It’s up to you to choose which type is more suitable for the topic you’re writing about. The most common type is a cause-and-effect essay explaining an event’s reasons and consequences. 

How to Craft a Perfect Essay About Biology

Writing is an art form that requires time and effort. But if you prefer someone else to write the paper for you, you can just text the experts, ‘ do my homework for me ,’ and consider it done. 

Here is the step by step instruction to organize the process for desired results. 

Choose Your Biology Essay Topic

To get a good grade:

• make your paper informative and enjoyable by choosing a topic you wish to explore. 
• Use a brainstorming technique to generate 30-50 options for biology essay topics and research to create a shortlist. 
• Keep a notebook to jot down your ideas.

Choose a Question for Research

When writing a biology essay, use a scientific approach by selecting a research question related to your topic. Always avoid overly complex or apparent questions. You can also text our profs ‘ write my research paper ,’ and it can be done in a blink.

Create an Outline

Always have a clear plan when writing biology essays while starting a paper. Use a 5-paragraph structure with an outline to keep your main idea and arguments organized. Use any format that works best for you and adjust as needed. Discard any ideas that don’t fit your research question.

Use a Strong Thesis Statement

The introduction should end with a strong thesis statement synthesizing the overall essay, conveying the research question and your point of view. The paper is ineffective without a clear thesis, as readers may not understand your position.

Use Citation and References

Include a list of references in your academic papers, such as biology essays, to avoid plagiarism and provide data sources. Use the appropriate citation style, like APA or CSE, and consult a guide for requirements.

How to Structure a Biology Essay

Ensure your essay has an attention-grabbing introduction, a detailed body, and a solid conclusion with distinct sections. Use around seven paragraphs for the main body, adjusting as needed for the required word count.

Biology Essay Introduction

In the introduction of your essay about biology, showcase your expertise by providing a brief background of the topic and stating the essay’s objective. For a research paper, explain why the study is relevant. Make sure the reader understands the essence of your subject.

The body section of your essay on biology should focus on supporting and defending your thesis statement. To achieve this, make a list of essential points to cover and address each one step by step. Starting a new paragraph for each point ensures neatness and a continuous flow. 

In conclusion, restate your thesis statement and summarize supporting points to solidify your arguments. Avoid introducing new concepts, and leave a lasting impression on your instructor.

Jellyfish Essay - Example of a Biology Essay About a Fascinating Creature of the Ocean

Jellyfish, also known as jellies, are incredible creatures of the ocean. They’re members of the phylum Cnidaria, including corals and sea anemones. You can find jellyfish in every ocean around the globe, from the surface to the depths of the sea. 

Do you know what shape the jellyfish body has?! It’s one of their most unique features. Their bell-shaped body comprises a soft, jelly-like substance called mesoglea, found between two cellular layers. The outer layer of cells, the epidermis, is thin and flexible, while the inner layer, the gastrodermis, contains the jellyfish’s digestive system. At the bottom of the bell is the mouth, surrounded by tentacles armed with stinging cells called nematocysts. 

The jellyfish tentacles consist of venom-filled sacs, which can be potentially dangerous and life-threatening. Considering the severity of its sting, researchers have gathered information on how to treat it effectively. Use thick clothing, tweezers, sticks, or gloves to alleviate the sting. It’s crucial to avoid touching the sting with bare skin since the venom can cause severe harm. Always dispose of the tool used for removing the sting to prevent re-stinging. 

Jellyfish are creatures that feed on small fish and other tiny marine organisms. They capture their prey using the tentacles and bring it to their mouth. Once the food is inside the jellyfish, it’s broken down by digestive enzymes and absorbed into the gastrovascular cavity. 

An exciting thing about jelly is its life cycle. They go through several stages of development, starting as a tiny, free-swimming larva and then growing into a polyp. The polyp stage is stationary, and the jellyfish attaches itself to a surface using a sticky pad. During this stage, the jellyfish reproduces asexually, creating clones of itself. These clones then break off from the polyp and develop into the familiar bell-shaped body of the adult jellyfish. 

Jellyfish play an essential role in the ocean’s ecosystem too. They’re a food source for many marine creatures, including sea turtles and some fish species. They also help to control the population of tiny marine animals by feeding on them, and their waste products contribute to the nutrient cycle in the ocean.

However, jellyfish populations can sometimes explode and become a nuisance. This phenomenon mostly occurs when their natural predators are eliminated from the ecosystem or when water conditions, like temperature and salinity, are conducive for jellyfish growth. In cases where jellyfish populations reach excessive levels, they can clog fishing nets and interfere with other human activities in the ocean.

Jellyfish really are stunning creatures of the ocean. They’re diverse, with many different species, and are essential to the marine ecosystem. While they can sometimes become a nuisance, they’re vital to the ocean’s food web and nutrient cycle. Studying jellyfish can give us a greater understanding of the complex and interconnected systems that make up our oceans.

Practical Tips for Creating Perfect Academic Papers

Developing writing skills is crucial for your academic success regardless of your major. Check out these tips we provided for improving your writing. But if you aren't fond of writing, you can easily hand it to professionals by saying, ‘ do homework for me .’

Search for Samples or Examples

To improve your writing, analyze examples of well-written biology essays or research papers. Although not all online samples are perfect, they can still provide insights into what works and what doesn’t. However, avoid plagiarism and ensure your paper is original by presenting fresh ideas and a unique perspective. 

Read Whenever You Can

Develop your writing skills by reading widely and extensively. Look for biology papers in scientific journals, websites, or books. Don’t forget to take notes on interesting points that you can use in your papers later.

Practice Makes Perfect

Don’t expect to write a perfect paper on your first try, so take every opportunity to practice your writing. Find a mentor if needed and use online resources to learn from your mistakes and improve your skills.

Always Organize Your Writing Process

Organize your work process instead of waiting for inspiration by defining stages, scheduling time for each task, and eliminating distractions. Don’t wait for mood to write an essay about biology; use different strategies to overcome writer’s block.

Proofread and Get Other Feedback

It’s hard to assess your own work accurately. Seek feedback from peers or instructors to identify strengths and weaknesses to improve upon. Don’t wait for your professor’s feedback to know if your biology essay is good. 

Interesting Biology Essay Topics from Our Experts to Practice Your Writing

In this paragraph, we listed different biology essay topics from which you can choose your preferred one and practice writing to excel in your academic papers.

• A jellyfish - my favorite creature
• Facts about animal behavior
• Biodiversity conservation
• Chemical Ecology
• Impacts of air pollution
• Acid Rain’s impact on wildlife
• The greenhouse effect
• Causes of global warming
• Effects of climate change on nature
• Ways to avoid water pollution

These are interesting topics and also some of the most significant environmental problems. Choose the one you like and practice.

Final Thoughts

This article provides tips that will definitely make your writing process easier and more effective. Adjust these tips while writing your biology paper and structure it as we did in the jellyfish essay example. But if you still prefer a professional to do it for you, contact us by writing ‘ do my research paper ,’ and our experts will handle it.

Ryan Acton is an essay-writing expert with a Ph.D. in Sociology, specializing in sociological research and historical analysis. By partnering with EssayHub, he provides comprehensive support to students, helping them craft well-informed essays across a variety of topics.

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Several Short Sentences About… Jellyfish

there are things      down           there                still                     coming                               ashore      — loren eiseley

• T he jellyfish is one of the simplest creatures that has ever existed.
• It is the oldest living animal species that has more than one organ.
• It has no brain.
• It has no central nervous system.
• It has no spinal column or bones of any sort.
• It has no heart.
• It has no blood.
• It has no circulatory system.
• It has no respiratory system.
• Despite all of the above, it is not simple.
• The jellyfish is, in fact, staggeringly complex.
• Despite centuries of study, very little is known about these creatures. We basically have no idea how they do almost anything, because just about everything about them is different from other complex creatures, and remains mostly a mystery to scientists.
• The jellyfish is not, even vaguely, a fish.
• It has brain cells, dispersed throughout its body and tied into to a neural network that communicates information neuron-to-neuron, not through a centralized system. So it is, essentially, intelligent everywhere, and cannot ‘die’ (or be rendered ‘unconscious’) through injury.
• It has thrived for 650 million years.
• There are over 10,000 enormously diverse jellyfish species, some of them microscopic, some of them with ‘bells’ over a meter across and tentacles over 100 feet long, and weighing up to a quarter of a ton.
• Some species have 24 eyes, which enable them to see 360-degrees in three dimensions, though only 2 of its eyes, apparently, can see in colour.
• It can fire venom through millions of tiny barbs fired through tiny tubes on its tentacles, in some species enough to paralyze or kill a human adult.
• Before it fires venom, it analyzes the chemistry of what it is touching to ensure it is either food or threatening (and hence worth immobilizing), but even taking time for this analysis it still fires at a speed 10 times faster than a car air-bag inflates in an accident, and faster than a bullet, and at a pressure of up to 2,000 psi, enough to penetrate deep into the skin of most creatures it encounters.
• The tentacles of a jellyfish can continue to detect threats or food, and to fire venom accordingly, long after the tentacle is separated from the ‘rest’ of the jellyfish.
• It reproduces both sexually and asexually, through a wide variety of ways, including (usually daily) spawning, splitting (division into two creatures), self-cloning, and ‘budding’ (producing new organisms on various parts of its body).
• Some species can revert from adults back to immature polyp form when threatened, and then ‘re-grow’ into ‘adults’, over and over, and are hence theoretically immortal.
• Jellyfish polyps can remain dormant for years, if the environment is not ideal, before starting to grow and reproduce.
• Most jellyfish ‘die’ by wearing out and decomposing, usually within a year of maturation, or by being eaten by creatures who have a natural immunity to their toxin.
• Korean robots have been developed to ‘kill’ large blooms of unwanted jellyfish (they have been clogging and shutting down the cooling systems of nuclear reactors, coal-fired power plants and desalination plants, and destroying oceanic salmon farms) by shredding them, but biologists think this will actually increase populations because “when you cut open jellies, you get artificial fertilization — that’s how aquarists get eggs and sperm from species that are difficult to spawn; all those embryos will then metamorphose into polyps which can live for years and clone themselves”.
• Jellyfish move with an efficiency (energy produced / energy used ratio) 50% greater than any other sea creature. We’re not at all sure how they do that.
• Some species are bioluminescent — they can create their own light to hunt in darkness.
• Some large-mass jellyfish live at ocean depths greater than most other creatures can tolerate. Biologists are just beginning to discover the nature of these even-stranger species. A deep dive off Chile last year unearthed a huge never-before-seen jellyfish with multiple solid ‘legs’ and ‘feet’ that was able to self-propel at astonishing speed in any direction and turn on a dime; photographed but uncaptured, its constitution and lineage remain a complete mystery.
• The collective biomass of jellyfish is so large that their vertical daily and tidal migrations are believed to affect ocean food systems and indirectly even ocean currents (they compete for food with krill, whose global biomass is second only to bacteria, and greater than that of humans)
• Jellyfish, at various stages of development, often form ‘colonies’ that manifest behaviours that resemble those of a single ‘creature’ more than those of a collective. If they are sharing intelligence between bodies exactly as they share them within a ‘single’ body, where exactly does one creature end and the next begin? The Portuguese Man-o’-War, a dangerous jellyfish-like ‘entity’ almost as ancient as the jellyfish, is in fact not a creature at all, but a collective of four specialized types of polyp (whose functions are, respectively, mobility, reproduction, digestion and defence) which have evolved together and now cannot survive independently. [And some octopi, which are immune to the Man-o’-War toxin, carry torn off Man-o’-War tentacles as weapons to use against other prey.]

So here we humans are, clumsy, fragile, watery bags of bones and organs, neophytes in this world of unfathomable ancient complexity. Still drawn to the ocean, from where we came. Only recently did we come ashore. Who can guess what might emerge after we’re gone. And when it does, whatever it is, it will probably have to continue to deal with jellyfish.

photo by Mitchell Kaneshkevich

6 Responses to Several Short Sentences About… Jellyfish

Bloody fascinating!!

Cheers for sharing :-)

In the words of Daniel Quinn “…and then there was jellyfish.”

wow…! ¿dancing with colorfull jellyfishes?

Thank you. These stagger my imagination… and just in time… for I thought I was getting a handle on things.

Pingback: As medusas vão papar esta merda toda | Achaques e Remoques

That list is a great read.

Due to anthropogenic ocean changes, jellyfish are now starting to eat ‘up’ the food chain, and using the sequestered extra energy to outcompete humans for ocean resources. heh.

http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/thiswayup/audio/2574107/jellyfish

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/11/15/opinion/gershwin-jellyfish/

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How a Jellyfish and a Sea Slug Illuminate the Mystery of the Self

By maria popova.

“There is, in sanest hours, a consciousness, a thought that rises, independent, lifted out from all else, calm, like the stars, shining eternal,” Walt Whitman wrote in contemplating identity and the paradox of the self . Whitman lived in an era before the birth of neuroscience , before psychology as we know it became a robust field of scientific study — before, that is, we began examining more closely whatever it is that we mean by the “self,” only to find that it doesn’t hold up to systematic scrutiny. A century after Whitman, another great poet and great seer of the human experience articulated the terror and the beauty of this elemental fact: “The self is a style of being, continually expanding in a vital process of definition, affirmation, revision, and growth,” Robert Penn Warren wrote in admonishing against the trouble with “finding yourself,” “a process that is the image, we may say, of the life process of a healthy society itself.”

Around the same time, a poet laureate of the life process — the great physician, etymologist, poet, and essayist Lewis Thomas (November 25, 1913–December 3, 1993) — explored the confounding nature of the self with uncommon insight and originality in the title essay of his altogether magnificent 1979 collection The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher ( public library ).

Thomas writes:

We’ve never been so self-conscious about our selves as we seem to be these days. The popular magazines are filled with advice on things to do with a self: how to find it, identify it, nurture it, protect it, even, for special occasions, weekends, how to lose it transiently. There are instructive books, best sellers on self-realization, self-help, self-development. Groups of self-respecting people pay large fees for three-day sessions together, learning self-awareness. Self-enlightenment can be taught in college electives. You’d think, to read about it, that we’d only just now discovered selves. Having long suspected that there was something alive in there, running the place, separate from everything else, absolutely individual and independent, we’ve celebrated by giving it a real name. My self.

In a testament to Ursula K. Le Guin’s conviction that “we can’t restructure our society without restructuring the English language,” Thomas traces the etymology of self , folded into which is just about the entire history of the human world:

The original root was se or seu , simply the pronoun of the third person, and most of the descendant words, except “self” itself, were constructed to allude to other, somehow connected people; “sibs” and “gossips,” relatives and close acquaintances, came from seu . Se was also used to indicate something outside or apart, hence words like “separate,” “secret,” and “segregate.” From an extended root swedh it moved into Greek as ethnos , meaning people of one’s own sort, and ethos, meaning the customs of such people. “Ethics” means the behavior of people like one’s self, one’s own ethnics.

Embedded in this evolutionary history of our language is something wholly uncorroborated by the evolutionary history of our biology — the misplaced hubris of exceptionalism. Thomas writes:

We tend to think of our selves as the only wholly unique creations in nature, but it is not so. Uniqueness is so commonplace a property of living things that there is really nothing at all unique about it. A phenomenon can’t be unique and universal at the same time. Even individual, free-swimming bacteria can be viewed as unique entities, distinguishable from each other even when they are the progeny of a single clone.

Thomas points out that creatures large and small exhibit properties that, in their human manifestation, we call individuality — they are, in other words, distinct selves. Single-cell microorganisms swimming in the same water, when examined closely enough, can be distinguished from one another by the way they twirl around their flagellae. Beans carry glycoproteins that serve as self-labels. Coral polyps are endowed with a biological self-consciousness that allows them to recognize other polyps of the same genetic line to fuse with, rejecting polyps of different lines. Fish and mice can tell individuals of their species by their smell. (Decades after Thomas composed this essay, we know that trees also differentiate between and communicate with individual others .) He considers the biological function of the self:

The markers of self, and the sensing mechanisms responsible for detecting such markers, are conventionally regarded as mechanisms for maintaining individuality for its own sake, enabling one kind of creature to defend and protect itself against all the rest. Selfness, seen thus, is for self-preservation. In real life, though, it doesn’t seem to work this way. The self-marking of invertebrate animals in the sea, who must have perfected the business long before evolution got around to us, was set up in order to permit creatures of one kind to locate others, not for predation but to set up symbiotic households. The anemones who live on the shells of crabs are precisely finicky; so are the crabs. Only a single species of anemone will find its way to only a single species of crab. They sense each other exquisitely, and live together as though made for each other.

Thomas locates the most compelling and sobering illustration of this in two obscure species inhabiting the Bay of Naples, melded into one — a common nudibranch sea slug and the medusa of a tiny jellyfish, permanently affixed to the shell-less snail’s mouth as a vestigial parasite. When marine biologists first discovered the improbable pair and set out to investigate how it formed, they found something astonishing and wholly counter to our basic assumptions about the orientation of a self to an other. Thomas writes:

The attached parasite, although apparently so specialized as to have given up living for itself, can still produce offspring, for they are found in abundance at certain seasons of the year. They drift through the upper waters, grow up nicely and astonishingly, and finally become full-grown, handsome, normal jellyfish. Meanwhile, the snail produces snail larvae, and these too begin to grow normally, but not for long. While still extremely small, they become entrapped in the tentacles of the medusa and then engulfed within the umbrella-shaped body. At first glance, you’d believe the medusae are now the predators, paying back for earlier humiliations, and the snails the prey. But no. Soon the snails, undigested and insatiable, begin to eat, browsing away first at the radial canals, then the borders of the rim, finally the tentacles, until the jellyfish becomes reduced in substance by being eaten while the snail grows correspondingly in size. At the end, the arrangement is back to the first scene, with the full-grown nudibranch basking, and nothing left of the jellyfish except the round, successfully edited parasite, safely affixed to the skin near the mouth.

More than a century after the great naturalist John Muir insisted that “when we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe,” Thomas finds in this real-world Aesop fable drawn from the evolutionary record an embodiment of the exquisite interdependence of nature — an elemental awareness of which we so easily and habitually lose sight, and yet an awareness which, when fully apprehended, dissolves the very notion of a discrete self:

It is a confusing tale to sort out, and even more confusing to think about. Both creatures are designed for this encounter, marked as selves so that they can find each other in the waters of the Bay of Naples. The collaboration, if you want to call it that, is entirely specific; it is only this species of medusa and only this kind of nudibranch that can come together and live this way. And, more surprising, they cannot live in any other way; they depend for their survival on each other. They are not really selves, they are specific others . The thought of these creatures gives me an odd feeling. They do not remind me of anything, really. I’ve never heard of such a cycle before. They are bizarre, that’s it, unique. And at the same time, like a vaguely remembered dream, they remind me of the whole earth at once. I cannot get my mind to stay still and think it through.

The essays in The Medusa and the Snail , which include Thomas’s beautiful meditation on altruism and the scientific poetics of friendship , remain among the finest, most insightful writing I have ever savored. Complement this particular portion with the young Borges on the nonexistence of the self , Ian McEwan on how the cult of selfhood imperils society , philosopher Jacob Needleman on how we become who we are , and neuroscientist Sam Harris on the paradox of free will , then revisit Thomas on our human potential and our cosmic responsibility .

— Published October 25, 2018 — https://www.themarginalian.org/2018/10/25/lewis-thomas-the-medusa-and-the-snail-self/ —

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Primary Worksheets: Jellyfish

Primary worksheets on the topic of the jellyfish designed for primary school students. A basic passage with questions at the end to answer, testing the students comprehension levels.

Jellyfish have no brain, heart, bones, or eyes. They are made up of a body that is like a smooth bag, with many stinging tentacles.

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Build the confidence level of students through active participation. Encourage projects for them to do what they have learnt into practical use. The more engaging the lesson is, the better the result.

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About mr. greg.

Mr. Greg is an English teacher from Edinburgh, Scotland, currently based in Hong Kong. He has over 5 years teaching experience and recently completed his PGCE at the University of Essex Online. In 2013, he graduated from Edinburgh Napier University with a BEng(Hons) in Computing, with a focus on social media.

The Thing About Jellyfish

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Prologue-Part 1

Part 5: Chapters 28-42

Part 5: Chapters 43-53

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Discussion Questions

Imagery evocative of size and perspective is featured in the novel; for example, Suzy discusses the difference between the photos of Earth in science class, and she mentions jellyfish blooms so large they destroy equipment and habitats. Consider two more points in the story in which size and perspective feature; analyze the reason Suzy mentions them as well as the impact learning about them has on her.

Suzy begins “ not-talking” so that she can hear the “noise” of life and so that she does not pollute the environment with unimportant noise. Create a list of sound images in the book and rank them in order of importance the way Suzy might rank them. Explain your choices.

Dr. Legler sees Suzy because her parents are concerned about her mental well-being and her choice to avoid verbal communication. What happens at Suzy’s appointments that demonstrate her communication challenges? 

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The jellyfish is a horrible everyday monster that is very threating to everyone. As Rosalind Fonem stated, "For an animal that does not have a brain, a heart, or blood, jellyfish have a negative impact in many places in the world." It seems silly that it could cause this much damage but Rosalind Fonem explains many ways jellyfish cause damage in her article Jellyfish Take Over. Jellyfish may look interesting but they create much damage. This everyday monster causes fishing industries a lot of money each year because they are eating the larvae and eggs of local fish . This action from the jellyfish affects all local fishing industries and their families. This could be solved by using the Bereo species, this fish will eat the Mnemiopsis jellyfish creating a more fair and balanced …show more content…

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How Biden’s New Immigration Policy Works

The new policy will give some 500,000 people a pathway to citizenship.

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By Hamed Aleaziz

President Biden’s new immigration policy protects some 500,000 people who are married to U.S. citizens from deportation and gives them a pathway to citizenship.

The election-year move comes just two weeks after Mr. Biden imposed a major crackdown at the U.S.-Mexico border, cutting off access to asylum for people who crossed into the United States illegally.

The policy announced on Tuesday is aimed at people who have been living in the United States for more than a decade and have built their lives and families here.

Here is how it works:

Why do the spouses of American citizens need protection?

Marrying an American citizen generally provides a pathway to U.S. citizenship. But people who crossed the southern border illegally — rather than arriving in the country with a visa — must return to their home countries to complete the process for a green card, something that can take years. The new program allows families to remain in the country while they pursue legal status.

Who is eligible?

There are roughly 1.1 million undocumented immigrants married to U.S. citizens in the United States, according to Fwd.us , an immigration advocacy group, but not all of them are eligible for the program.

The spouses must have lived in the United States for 10 years and have been married to an American citizen as of June 17. They cannot have a criminal record. Officials estimate that the policy will provide legal status and protections for about 500,000 people. The benefits would also extend to the roughly 50,000 children of undocumented spouses who became stepchildren to American citizens.

When will the program take effect?

Biden administration officials said they expected the program to start by the end of the summer. Those eligible will then be able to apply for the benefits.

Why is President Biden doing this now?

Mr. Biden is trying to strike a tricky balance on immigration, which is a serious political vulnerability for him. Polls show Americans want tougher policies. Just two weeks ago, Mr. Biden announced a crackdown on asylum at the southern border.

His new policy, giving hundreds of thousands of immigrants new legal protections, is a way for him to answer the calls from the progressive base of the Democratic Party, which has accused the White House of betraying campaign promises to enact a more humane approach to immigrants.

Hamed Aleaziz covers the Department of Homeland Security and immigration policy. More about Hamed Aleaziz