Jellyfish Fun Facts

JellyFish Facts
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Jellyfish Fun Facts

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

If you are a regular visitor of the website, you would know a lot about jellyfish, but there are many fun facts that you must have missed out. Like these:

• Some jellyfish are as small as pinheads while others are even bigger than humans
• Jellyfish are used to make many yummy dishes
• Jellyfish have ruled the earth even before dinosaurs
• They don’t have brains while some of them have eyes
• They are made up mostly of protein and water
• Jellyfish group is known as a smack

So what exactly is jellyfish? These are creatures that are made of jelly-like or gelatinous material. There are many ‘jellyfish’ that aren’t even actually jellyfish, but since they are gelatinous, they are mitakenyl given that name. The stinging type of jellyfish is known as medusa and the non stinging types are known as comb jellies. And then there is a third group called salp that is also in the same group of humans!

Bloom

When many animals or plants show up suddenly, they are called bloom. There are places in the world where many jellyfish show up suddenly, and that is when we hear in news that a bloom of jellyfish has showed up. These blooms often cause problem for local people, tourists, and fishermen. If you are strolling on a beach, and you see jellyfish everywhere, it means you have visited a bloom.

Jellyfish are basically planktons and aren’t very good at swimming. So they follow ocean currents. When two currents meet at a place, blooms are formed.

Is there a rise in the number of jellyfish globally?

That’s a difficult question. Of course blooms are being observed all over the world, but there are no historical facts to compare them with. Since the presence of blooms has never been recorded previously, there is no data to compare it with. Blooms generally show up when conditions are favorable (with a lot of food and right temperature). It might just be the normal cycle for jellyfish, or it might just be due to global warming. With no historical data, we can never tell. And if the blooms are actually on rise, then the reasons might be climate change, over-fishing, newer species, and surplus food for jellyfish.

Their age

While most of them live for at most one year, the smaller ones live for just a couple of days. The most famous stage of their life cycle is the medusa stage when the giant bulb is on top and tentacles hang below.