Jellyfish Facts and Pictures
Picture the most graceful and ominous creature floating in the ocean drifting with currents and following the sun.
These seven mesmerizing facts and fascinating pictures prove why the elegant jellyfish has more to offer than a transparent sac of gelatin and poisonous tentacles.
7 Mesmerizing Facts about Jellyfish
- Jellyfish may be 500 Million Years Old
Jellyfish might be one of earth's oldest species and they are found from warm shallow waters to the bottomless depths in every ocean around the world. They are thought to have existed for more than 500 million years.
- Jellyfish Kill using Toxic Nematocysts
Jellyfish capture their prey using millions of tiny poisonous stinging cells (nematocysts). If human skin makes contact with jellyfish tentacles the painful and sometimes deadly toxin is absorbed through the skin.
- The Box Jellyfish is the most Deadly
The sting of a box jellyfish is so powerful it is considered to be the most deadly of all jellyfishes. Box jellyfish toxins is excruciatingly painful and often causes human deaths from medical shock or heart failure. The box jelly has four clusters of 6 eyes (total 24) across its bell.
- Some Jellyfish Do Not Sting
Despite their notoriety, not all jellyfishes have a poisonous sting. The migrating golden jellyfish in Palau is nontoxic.
- Jellyfish are Not Fish
Jellyfishes are invertebrates and related to anemones and corals. They are not fish. Jellyfish are brainless, heartless, boneless, and do not have a spine.
- The Largest of the species in the Lion's Mane Jellyfish
The lion's mane jellyfish (Cyanea capillata) can grow to a diameter of almost three meters with tentacles measuring over 30 meters long and it is easily the largest of all jellyfish species.
- The Smallest Jellyfish is the Most Deadly
The most fatally potent of all jellyfish is also the smallest. The sting of the Irukandji jellyfish (Common Kingslayer) is 1,000 times stronger than a tarantula spider.
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