I'm baaaaack! With Jellyfish!!!!

SO.... I have been a bit MIA lately and that is because, well, life really gets in the way of starting things. With work, family trips, sickness (that was a hellish week...), and personal traveling, there have been a lot of things that have been keeping me away from here. And I apologize for that! I have had so many cool things that I've wanted to share and just haven't gotten the chance so I'm gonna start back up with a BANG!

JELLYFISH!

Who doesn't like Jellyfish, right? Well, actually, probably a lot of people. And most have them have been stung by them. Personally, I've never been stung by a jellyfish. However, I have been stung by sea grass anemones and those things hurt so.... I can only imagine!

But, I'm going to talk about Jellyfish today because I have been seeing a lot of them. Big ones too, not the small ctenophors (which are still really cool and I want to see them because they are adorable!). At work I've actually been seeing a large amount of Lions Mane Jellyfish. One day alone I counted about 8 in a small harbor just drifting by, scaring all of the shore shrimp onto the docks. This may be a common thing, but I found it interesting because they were all at least the size of a dinner plate. For those of you that don't know, the Lions Mane Jellyfish has been recorded as the largest species of jellyfish, growing in size up to 8 feet in diameter. The largest ever recorded had tentacles reaching 120 feet long, making it one of the largest known animals in the world, not just the largest jellyfish. That, my friends, is scary. You don't want to run into one of those in the open water.

The gif below shows one of the larger ones that I saw. The stick in the water is at least 1 1/2 feet long and you can see the tentacles floating in the water doing beneath the dock. And that one's probably just a baby baby.

FACTS!

So, let's get down to the brass tax that is Jellyfish. 

Source

Jellyfish make up the subphylum, Medusozoa, from the Cnidaria phylum. They are cousins of coral reefs but express the medusal body form as their main life stage (while coral express the polyp stage mainly). The medusa is the umbrella-like body that everyone recognizes as jellyfish, with the long, extending tentacles that everyone is scared and fascinated by. Though they express the medusal stage as their main form, jellyfish do have a polyp stage in early development. Once an egg has been fertilized, it will develop into a planula. The planula, essentially, is a swimming egg and it looks for a suitable place for it to develop into the polyp stage of it's life cycle. Once it has attached to a surface, usually a rock or a sandy bottom, the polyp, also known as the scyphistoma, will begin to bud. Budding is the process of producing multiple copies of the same individual, in this case the individuals are known as ephyra (immature jellyfish). Each planula can produce a varied number of ephyra and can produce these individuals in one or many intervals through time. Once released, the ephyra develop into fully grown jellyfish. Personally, I find these little guys adorable. They don't quite have the bell shape needed to move properly and look like sheets of ripped up paper trying to squish together real quick to move around in the water. So cute. 

I'll put something into perspective: When an ephyra is released, it is about the size of a quarter. Very small. A jellyfish has a very fast growth rate. A lions mane jellyfish, for example, can grow up to 8 feet in diameter and their life span is only 1 year. One year. Think on that one. 

In order to move, a jellyfish does not use its tentacles to swim. Instead, it uses the bell shape of the medusa to pulsate water in and out, known as jet propulsion. You can see this is the gif, to the left. They are not very strong swimmers and are mainly influenced by the movement of the currents but this jet propulsion allows them to have a minor degree of control over their direction. Their tentacles trail behind them, as they are only used to capture prey and deter predators. 

Source

How do these tentacles deter predators and capture prey, you ask? Well, in a very ingenious way. Jellyfish tentacles are lined with cells called cnidoblasts that act independently to sting anything that comes into contact with them. Each cnidoblast houses a nematocyst, a pocket filled with a spring loaded stinging thread that shoots venomous nerotoxin into its victims. The spring is "sprung" (so to speak) when an unsuspecting fish or human "victim" rubs up against the trigger and ends up causing all sorts of pain. For small fish, they can be paralized, but for humans it causes pain, rash, fever, stomach aches, and the like. In some cases, like with box jellies, which are TERRIBLE creatures, people are left with scars from stings and in some cases death (extreme cases but cases none the less). In Australia, box jellies are so dangerous that they shut down beaches when they are spotted to prevent people from getting harmed. 

Because these things are activated by touch and not controlled by the jellyfish itself, you don't even have to be in the water to get stung. SO! If you see a jellyfish on the beach or on the ground or anywhere at all, alive of dead, DO NOT touch the tentacles for they can still sting you and make you cry. 

If you do get stung: Use rubbing alcohol, ammonia, vinegar, or even URINE (yes, when Monica got stung by a jellyfish and Joey had to pee on her, it actually worked) to counteract the stings. Using fresh water will only make it worse and rubbing or scratching will only activate the stingers more. 

Just remember: Jellyfish are pretty and, honestly, really cool for things that don't really have a brain (yeah, they don't have a brain) but they are not something you should touch. Unless you're like Dory, and bounce on top of their heads. Just watch out for those tentacles!

Any comments or questions? Feel free to leave a comment below! I'd love to hear from ya!