Aurelia Aurita: Moon Jellyfish

in #ocean6 years ago

This alien-looking surface drifter is very common and widely recognized jellyfish. It can generally be found all over the world in consistent currents, at temperatures ranging between 5 – 30° C, in harbors and estuaries. There are over 200 species of jellyfish in the ocean.

The moon jelly is translucent with a bell-shaped body and long tentacles. It swims horizontally using pulsations to keep it near the surface of the water.

You can easily recognize the moon jellyfish with its four pink crescent (horseshoe) shaped gonads and the translucent umbrella, reaching a size of 5-40 cm across.


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Here you can see young jellies (planula larvae) attached to the rock. They grow here till they become little polyps. These polyps develop multiple body segments, it separates and floats away as ephyra which turns into adult jellyfish.

These jellies are both sexually (medusa) and asexually (polyp). The males release sperm which are taken up orally by the females and then fertilized internally.

The moon jellyfish use its tentacles to feed on organisms like mollusks and plankton. These jellyfish change color (pink, purple, orange) according to their diet. They spread their long tentacles over a large area to catch their pray.

The jellyfish is the oldest (360 million years) multi-organ animal. The moon jelly consists of 95% water. Adults live for a year but the polyps can live up to 20 years.

Move like a jellyfish


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I'm glad to see you are still continuing with these fish(y) posts
:)

btw, you mention they are 95% water and I imagine the first response from anyone reading that is 'no wonder they are like bubbles and we can see through them'.

However, the question to ask then is: what percentage of water are you?

Quote:

According to Dr. Jeffrey Utz, Neuroscience, pediatrics, Allegheny University, different people have different percentages of their bodies made up of water. Babies have the most, being born at about 78%. By one year of age, that amount drops to about 65%. In adult men, about 60% of their bodies are water. However, fat tissue does not have as much water as lean tissue. In adult women, fat makes up more of the body than men, so they have about 55% of their bodies made of water

I also found interesting the amount of water required daily is:

Generally, an adult male needs about 3 liters (3.2 quarts) per day while an adult female needs about 2.2 liters (2.3 quarts) per day

(info is from: https://www.usgs.gov/special-topic/water-science-school/science/water-you-water-and-human-body?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects )

Maybe now I will go to your other account... :)

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Thank you for sharing all this about jellyfish. I have been living in Monterey, CA and was going to the Monterey Bay Aquarium with my children every week before Covid started. The jellyfish exhibit was one of my favorites! Amazing!

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